Sadly I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length: 10
But no matter!—I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder 15
Might fancy me dead,
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing, 20
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:—ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness, the nausea, 25
The pitiless pain,
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain,
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain. 30
And oh! of all tortures,
That torture the worst
Has abated—the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river 35
Of Passion accurst:
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst:
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound, 40
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground,
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never 45
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy,
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed: 50
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never 55
Regretting, its roses:
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses;
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies 60
A holier odor
About it, of pansies:
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies,
With rue and the beautiful 65
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie, 70
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.