Page 32 of 172 FOR ANNIE. - Complete Poetical Works

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 drank 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)

		We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power. Franklin Delano Roosevelt