FOR ANNIE. THANK Heaven! the crisis- And the fever called "Living " Sadly, I know I am shorn of my strength, As I lie at full length- And I rest so composedly, Might fancy me dead— Thinking me dead. The moaning and groaning, With that horrible throbbing At heart-ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing! The sickness-the nausea- For the napthaline river Of a water that flows, Down under ground. And ah! let it never That my room it is gloomy 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 rosesIts old agitations Of myrtles and roses : For now, while so quietly A holier odour About it, of pansies— A rosemary odour, Commingled with pansiesWith rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies. And so it lies happily, Bathing in many THE ring is on my hand, And the wreath is on my brow; Satins and jewels grand And I am happy now. And my lord he loves me well; But, when first he breathed his vow, I felt my bosom swell— For the words rang as a knell, And the voice seemed his who fell 'In the battle down the dell, But he spoke to re-assure me, And thus the words were spoken, That proves me happy now! Would God I could awaken! TO F BELOVED! amid the earnest woes My soul at least a solace hath In dreams of thee, and therein knows And thus thy memory is to me Like some enchanted far-off isle In some tumultuous sea Some ocean throbbing far and free With storms-but where meanwhile Serenest skies continually Just o'er that one bright island smile. |