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ODD POEM.
THE
following exquisite specimen of the private property in words
has been sent us by a friend, and we are glad to be able to add it to
the scrap-book of singularities in literature which so many of our fair
readers, doubtless, have upon the table. POE
certainly has that gift of nature, which an abstract man should be most
proud of — a type of mind different from all others without being less
truthful in its perceptions for that difference; and though (to use two
long words) this kind of idiosyncracy is necessarily idiopathic,
and, from want of sympathy, cannot be largely popular, it is as
valuable
as rarity in any thing else, and to be admired by connoisseurs
proportionately. Money, (to tell a useless truth) could not be better
laid out for the honor of this period of American literature — neither
by the government, by a society, nor by an individual — than in giving EDGAR
POE a competent annuity, on condition
that he should never write except upon impulse, never dilute his
thoughts for the magazines, and never publish anything till it had been
written a year. And this because the threatening dropsy of our
country's literature is its copying the GREGARIOUSNESS
which prevails in every thing else, while Mr. POE
is not only peculiar in himself, but unsusceptible of imitation. We
have Bulwers by hundreds, Mrs. Hemanses by thousands, Byrons common as
shirt-collars, every kind of writer "by the lot," and less of individualesque
genius than any other country in the world. This extends to other
things as well. HORACE GREELEY
is a national jewel (we think) from being humbly yet fearlessly
individualesque in politics and conduct. What is commonly understood by
eccentricity is but a trashy copy of what we mean.
The reader's mind will easily pick out instances of the true
individualesque, in every walk of life, and, as a mere suggestion, we
here leave it — proceeding to give Mr. POE's
verses: —
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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 of 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. |
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