Selections from Poe. Edgar Allan Poe

heart. Search well the measure —

        The word – the syllables. Do not forget

      The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor:

        And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

      Which one might not undo without a sabre,

        If one could merely comprehend the plot.

      Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

        Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus

      Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

        Of poets, by poets – as the name is a poet's, too.

      Its letters, although naturally lying

        Like the knight Pinto, Mendez Ferdinando,

      Still form a synonym for Truth. – Cease trying!

        You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

      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)

        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.

      THE BELLS

      I

      Hear the sledges with the bells,

      Silver bells!

      What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

      How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

      In the icy air of night!

      While the stars, that oversprinkle

      All the heavens, seem to twinkle

      With a crystalline deligit;

      Keeping time, time, time,

      In a sort of Runic rhyme,

      To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

      From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

      Bells, bells, bells —

      From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

      II

      Hear the mellow wedding bells,

      Golden