The first part of the concluding speech of Monos( pages 327-332) is a sort of prose For Annie. Mallarme considered this the best of Poe's poems, but he did not understand it: he thought the speaker was a convalescent.]
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:—
