Читать книгу Selections from Poe - Эдгар Аллан По, Edgar Allan Poe, Marta Fihel - Страница 36

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)

  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.