The Home Book of Verse Volume Ii Part 145

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 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 [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.

I can see it all now,--the slantwise rain Of light through the leaves, The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, The bloom of her roses under the eaves.

Just the same as a month before,-- The house and the trees, The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,-- Nothing changed but the hives of bees.

Before them, under the garden wall, Forward and back, Went drearily singing the ch.o.r.e-girl small, Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun Had the chill of snow; For I knew she was telling the bees of one Gone on the journey we all must go!

Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps For the dead to-day: Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain of his age away."

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill With his cane to his chin, The old man sat; and the ch.o.r.e-girl still Sung to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since In my ears sounds on:-- "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!

Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892]

A TRYST

I will not break the tryst, my dear, That we have kept so long, Though winter and its snows are here, And I've no heart for song.

You went into the voiceless night; Your path led far away.

Did you forget me, Heart's Delight, As night forgets the day?

Sometimes I think that you would speak If still you held me dear; But s.p.a.ce is vast, and I am weak-- Perchance I do not hear.

Surely, howe'er remote the star Your wandering feet may tread, When I shall pa.s.s the sundering bar Our souls must still be wed.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

LOVE'S RESURRECTION DAY

Round among the quiet graves, When the sun was low, Love went grieving,--Love who saves: Did the sleepers know?

At his touch the flowers awoke, At his tender call Birds into sweet singing broke, And it did befall

From the blooming, bursting sod All Love's dead arose, And went flying up to G.o.d By a way Love knows.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

HEAVEN