Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
For AnnieEdgar Allan Poe (18091849)
T
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last—
And the fever called ‘Living’
Is conquer’d at last.
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.
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead—
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart—ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The pitiless pain—
Have ceased, with the fever
That madden’d my brain—
With the fever called ‘Living’
That burn’d in my brain.
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.
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground—
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
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.
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses—
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
Lying, it fancies
A holier odour
About it, of pansies—
A rosemary odour,
Commingled with pansies—
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie—
Drown’d in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She fondly caress’d,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast—
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast
She cover’d me warm,
And she pray’d to the angels
To keep me from harm—
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
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.
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.