Poe's Library website

A collection of everything Poe. I'm going to check out the audio section where there are links to readings of Poe stories and poems. http://www.houseofusher.net/library.html/

Closed on Account of Rabies

This could be the worst album cover of all time. It's a CD of people reading Poe against eerie musical backgrounds. Some of the tracks are unlistenable, while others are excellent! The excellent tracks: Ulalume read by the late Jeff Buckley, For Annie, read by Gavin Friday, The Raven, read by Christopher Walken, The Masque of the Red Death, read by Gabriel Byrne, and The Tell-Tale Heart, read by Iggy Pop.

For Annabelle

Annabel Lee page 1 holograph, originally uploaded by vidalia_11.

In E.A. Poe's handwriting. From site http://www.columbia.edu/acis/textarchive/rare/76.html/

For Annie [1849]

FOR ANNIE
E.A. 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 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.

The moaning and groaning —
The sighing and sobbing —
Are quieted now; with,
The horrible throbbing
At heart: — oh, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!

And ah, of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated — the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the napthaline river
Of Glory 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, I fancy
A holier odor about me,
of pansy —
A rosemary odor
Commingled with pansies —
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansy.

And so I lie happily
Bathing in many
A dream of the love
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 of the Heaven —
Sparkles with Annie —
It glows with the thought
Of the love of my Annie —
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.


------------------------

[Annie was Nancy Locke Heywood Richmond. Poe and her closest friends always called her Annie, a name she adopted legally after her husband's death in 1873. In a letter of March 23, 1849, Poe tells Annie Richmond, "I think the lines 'For Annie' (those I now send) much the best I have ever written."]

From E.A. Poe Society of Baltimore website: http://www.lfchosting.com/eapoe/works/index.htm

It's October

A Dream Within A Dream
E.A. Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?