The sickness, the nausea, This pitiless pain, Have ceased, with the fever That maddened my brain,With the fever called "Living" That burned in my brain. And O, of all tortures That torture the worst, Torture of thirst I have drunk of a water That quenches all thirst, Of a water that flows, With a lullaby sound, From a spring but a very few Feet under ground,— From a cavern not very far Down under ground. And ah! let it never Be foolishly said That my room it is gloomy And narrow my bed; 'or man never slept In a different bed, And, to sleep, you must slumber In just such a bed. My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes, Forgetting, or never Regretting its roses,— Its old agitations Of myrtles and roses: For now, while so quietly Lying, it fancies A holier odor About it, of pansies,A rosemary odor, Commingled with pansies, With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies. And so it lies happily, ⚫ Bathing in many A dream of the truth And the beauty of AnnieDrowned in a bath Of the tresses of Annie. She tenderly kissed me, She fondly caressed, And then I fell gently To sleep on her breast,— Deeply to sleep From the heaven of her breast. When the light was extinguished, And I lie so composedly That you fancy me dead;- Now in my bed, (With her love at my breast,) That you fancy me dead,— That you shudder to look at me, Thinking me dead: But my heart it is brighter For it sparkles with Annie,— It glows with the light Of the love of my Annie, With the thought of the light -Edgar Allen Poe. M A Farewell. Y fairest child, I have no song to give you ; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray; Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day. Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever Do noble things, not dream them, all day long And so make life, death, and that vast forever, One grand, sweet song. |