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 napthaline 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 in 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.

TO MY MOTHER

ECAUSE I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find among their burning terms of love None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called youYou who are more than mother unto me,

And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.

My mother, my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew

By that infinity with which my wife

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.