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 naphtaline 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 woman 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 flowers 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 Antony
Drowned in a bath
Of the hairs of Antony.
He tenderly kissed me,
He fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on his chest
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of his chest
When the light was
extinguished,
He covered me
warm,
And he 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 his love)
That you fancy me dead
And I rest so contentedly,
Now in my bed,
(With his love at my chest)
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 Antony
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Antony
With the thought of the
light
Of the eyes
of my Antony.