Volume Ii Part 145 (1/2)

And I rest so composedly Now, in my bed, That any beholder Might fancy me dead-- Might start at beholding me, Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning, The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart--ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing!

The sickness--the nausea-- The 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 Has abated--the terrible Torture of thirst For the naphthaline river Of Pa.s.sion accurst-- 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; For 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 Annie-- Drowned 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, She covered me warm, And she prayed to the angels To keep me from harm-- To the queen of the angels To s.h.i.+eld me from harm.

And I lie so composedly, Now, in my bed (Knowing her love), That you fancy me dead-- And I rest so contentedly, 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 Than all of the many Stars in the sky, For it sparkles with Annie-- It glows with the light Of the love of my Annie-- With the thought, of the light Of the eyes of my Annie.

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849]

TELLING THE BEES

Here is the place; right over the hill Runs the path I took; You can see the gap in the old wall still, And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, And the poplars tall; And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the sun; And down by the brink Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, Heavy and slow; And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, And the same brook sings of a year ago.

There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze; And the June sun warm Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.

I mind me how with a lover's care From my Sunday coat I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.

Since we parted, a month had pa.s.sed,-- To love, a year; Down through the beeches I looked at last On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.