 ** FOR ANNIE **

 Thank Heaven! the crisis-        The danger is past,
 And the lingering illness        Is over at last-
 And the fever called "Living"    Is conquered at last.

 Sadly, I know                    I am shorn of my strength,
 And no muscle I move             As I lie at full length-
 But no matter!-I feel            I am better at length.

 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 oh! of all tortures          That torture the worst
 Has abated the terrible          Torture of thirst
 For the naphthaline river        Of Passion 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 shield 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 - 1849
