For Annie by Edgar Allan Poe. Get A Copy. Published first published April 28th More Details Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about For Annie , please sign up.
Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of For Annie. Sep 21, Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile rated it liked it. A perplexing love poem that makes you think.
Did he die? Was he simply peacefully sleeping? Or did she help ease him out of illness and into the afterlife? It seems unclear. Dec 12, Siobhan rated it liked it.
With For Annie, we have one I really enjoyed. Although it is not my favourite Poe poem — The Raven still holds that position — it was certainly one of my favourites. Sep 13, Hasna rated it liked it. Nevertheless, I expected no less. Classic Poe, but not my favourite of his works. I enjoyed the flow of the words but not the overall message.
Nov 17, Tom rated it really liked it. For Annie is a poem to Poe's cherished friend Mrs. Charles B. Richmond of Lowell and Westford, Massachusetts. Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z : the essential reference to his life and work. New York: Checkmark Books. I procured.
I wrote you a letter, in which I opened my whole heart to you. I then reminded you of that holy promise, which was the last I exacted from you in parting — the promise that, under all circumstances, you would come to me on my bed of death. Having written this letter, I swallowed about half the laudanum. A friend was at hand, who. I am so ill. May 30, John Yelverton rated it really liked it. Edgar Allan Poe Ulalume The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year: It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
These were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that roll— As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole— That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole.
Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sere,— For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year Ah, night of all nights in the year! And now, as the night was senescent And star-dials pointed to morn— As the star-dials hinted of morn— At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn— Astarte's bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn.
And I said: "She is warmer than Dian; She rolls through an ether of sighs— She revels in a region of sighs: She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion To point us the path to the skies— To the Lethean peace of the skies— Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes— Come up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes.
Ah, fly! I replied: "This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendour is beaming With Hope and in Beauty tonight! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust to a gleaming, That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night. To My Mother Because 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 you— You 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. Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter. Teach This Poem. Follow Us. Find Poets. Go to Goodreads. Look for the review by n.
This site didn't post my whole interpretation. Posted on by Spandrell. Go to G00dreads to read it. Apparently, they won't allow me to type in another website. Posted on by a guest. They didn't put my whole interpretation on here. They cut it way short. Poe does not give us the solution to this problem. He gives only the clues, so that we can solve the mystery on our own. The poem "For Annie" is about a laudanum addict who, once again, obtains his heavenly vision Annie. It is being told through the addict's thoughts in the present tense.
He is not speaking to anyone. The poem begins with the narrator already having ingested the laudanum. This can be understood by moving the sixth stanza to the beginning: "oh! Now first stanza , he is relieved that his withdrawal symptoms are over.
They have been conquered. He thanks Heaven for this. The word "living" is in quotation marks because an addict's "living" consists of spending all of their time craving their drug. When they are without their drug, they live with a fever withdrawal symptoms. It should be noted that the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was addicted to opium. In a letter to his publisher, Joseph Cottle, he writes: "I was seduced into the ACCURSED Habit ignorantly — I had been almost bed ridden for many months with swelling in my knees — in a medical journal I happily met with an account of a cure performed in a similar case.
Also, in a letter to his brother George, Coleridge writes: "Laudanum gave me repose, not sleep; but you, I believe, know how divine that repose is, what a spot of enchantment, a green spot of fountain and flowers and trees in the very heart of a waste of sands! God be praised, the matter has been absorbed; and I am now recovering apace, and enjoy that newness of sensation from the fields, the air, and the sun which makes convalescence almost repay one for disease.
Because the sixth stanza does not actually start the poem, we will return to it and explore it in a little more detail shortly.
Next second stanza , the laudanum has deprived the narrator of his strength, but he doesn't care because he feels better lying down. He is resting so composedly third stanza , and he imagines if anyone were to look at him, they might think he is dead because he is motionless.
The narrator then goes on fourth and fifth stanzas to think more about his withdrawal symptoms having been conquered. He is no longer moaning and groaning or sighing and sobbing. His emotional disturbances have been quieted, with his quickly beating heart. Laudanum significantly slows the beating of one's heart. He also thinks about the sickness, the nausea, and the pitiless pain having ceased, with the fever. These are all symptoms of laudanum withdrawal.
Now, we return to the most important stanza of the whole poem—the sixth. This is the first time water is mentioned in the poem. The narrator is no longer craving the naphthaline river of Passion accurst: "I have drank of a water that quenches all thirst. Naphthaline is a toxic hydrocarbon that comes from coal tar. It is flammable. This is a reference to the Phlegethon river, a river of fire that surrounds the Underworld Hades. Laudanum is a solution of alcohol and opium. Passion accurst means cursed love.
The water is cursed because it is made in the fiery river of the Underworld, and when drunk, it "loves" you while you are under its influence, but eventually the effects will wear off.
This then makes the user want more, and so they become addicted, constantly thirsting for this water. When the addict does not "quench their thirst," they become sick and experience withdrawal symptoms. References to the spiritual are made several times in the poem starting from the very beginning. This spiritual quality becomes more apparent later.
The next stanza seventh reinforces the idea that the water comes from the Underworld: "a water that flows with a lullaby sound from a spring but a very few feet underground—from a cavern not very far down under ground. This gives it its "lullaby sound. The narrator now eighth stanza thinks if anyone were in his room, they might say that it is gloomy and his bed is too small, but they would be foolish in saying that because they would not be in his state of mind: "For man never slept in a different bed—And, to sleep, you [one] must slumber in just such a bed.
When he mentions sleep and slumber, we should not think he is literally talking about sleeping. He is only mentioning being under the influence of laudanum.
If they were under the influence of this drug, they would not be foolishly saying the room is gloomy and the bed is too small. They wouldn't even care. These next three stanzas go together. They are about the narrator's laudanum visions just before he falls asleep. The ninth stanza mentions a spirit. The narrator uses the word tantalized to describe it. This is another reference to water and the Underworld. The word tantalize comes from Greek Tantalos, King of Phrygia.
He was punished in the afterlife by being sent to Tartarus, an area in the Underworld. He was forced to stand in a river. Every time he tried to grab fruit from any of the tree branches that were above him, the wind would blow them out of his reach, and the water would disappear every time he tried to get something to drink.
The word tantalize means to torment or to tease and disappoint someone's expectations. This fits in with the narrative of a drug addict who becomes excited because they finally acquired their drug. They get high, and they feel good, but they are repeatedly disappointed because the effects wear off, then they need to get more before their withdrawal symptoms return.
Now, let's move on and talk about the narrator's spirit. The word spirit, in this sense, refers to his mind. Charles Alston, , was a Scottish botanist who wrote in one of his papers about how opium was believed to raise the spirits [mood] and relax the muscles.
The narrator's spirit blandly reposes. He is not sleeping. Coleridge wrote: "Laudanum gave me repose, not sleep. His mind is just pleasantly resting, "forgetting, or never regretting, its roses—its old agitations of myrtles and roses.
The myrtles and roses refer to his agitations.
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