For Antony - parodiando Poe

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.