And I lie so composedly, Feeding and fed, A careless beholder Might fancy me dead. Not seeing my jaws work Might fancy me dead. The grunting and groaning, The writhing and raving, Are quieted now, With that horrible craving At stomach――that horrible Stomachic craving. The sickness, the faintness, The emptiness――pain Have ceased; and my stomach’s A stomach again, And feels like a stomach Not living in vain. And oh! of all tortures That torture the worst Has abated,――the terrible Torture of Thirst, For a napthaline river Or fusil lake burst: I’d have drunk dirty water, For quenching that thirst. Of a puddle that flows With a smell, and no sound From a hole but a very few Feet underground, Though I holded my nose As I stoop’d to the ground. And ah! let it never Be foolishly said That this my mahogany Is not well spread! With such victual before me I call it a spread; And such drink――my cosmogony Knows nought instead. My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes: The upsetting or ever ’Twas wetting one’s nose is All over. Sweet spirit! Thy scent in my nose is. And now while so pleasantly Curl’d up it fancies, A fragranter odour Than rue has, or pansies,―― Or even than rosemary Mingled with pansies,―― The beautiful bourbon, The Puritan fancies. And so I lie happily Drinking a many And eating a few, It will cost a big penny; I don’t mind the cost; For I have not a penny. * * * * * * * FOR ANNIE. I. 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. * * * * * IV. The moaning and groaning, The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart――Ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing! V. 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. VI. And, O! of all tortures That torture the worst Has abated――the terrible Torture of thirst For the napthaline river Of Passion accurst. I have drunk of a water That quenches all thirst. * * * * * E. A. POE. Hannibal Leigh.[15] It was many and many a year ago―― It seems so long to me, That there lived in a city which you may know A man named Hannibal Leigh; And this man he seem’d to have nothing to do But to drink and get drunk with me.