The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 eBook

I slept in one of the only two berths in the vessel —­ and the berths of a sloop of sixty or twenty tons need scarcely be described.  That which I occupied had no bedding of any kind.  Its extreme width was eighteen inches.  The distance of its bottom from the deck overhead was precisely the same.  I found it a matter of exceeding difficulty to squeeze myself in.  Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my vision —­ for it was no dream, and no nightmare —­ arose naturally from the circumstances of my position —­ from my ordinary bias of thought —­ and from the difficulty, to which I have alluded, of collecting my senses, and especially of regaining my memory, for a long time after awaking from slumber.  The men who shook me were the crew of the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it.  From the load itself came the earthly smell.  The bandage about the jaws was a silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of my customary nightcap.

The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for the time, to those of actual sepulture.  They were fearfully —­ they were inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion.  My soul acquired tone —­ acquired temper.  I went abroad.  I took vigorous exercise.  I breathed the free air of Heaven.  I thought upon other subjects than Death.  I discarded my medical books.  “Buchan” I burned.  I read no “Night Thoughts” —­ no fustian about churchyards —­ no bugaboo tales —­ such as this.  In short, I became a new man, and lived a man’s life.  From that memorable night, I dismissed forever my charnel apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which, perhaps, they had been less the consequence than the cause.

There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell —­ but the imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity its every cavern.  Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful —­ but, like the Demons in whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or they will devour us —­ they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish.

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THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM

     The garden like a lady fair was cut,
     That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
     And to the open skies her eyes did shut. 
     The azure fields of Heaven were ’sembled right
     In a large round, set with the flowers of light. 
     The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew. 
     That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
     Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue. 
     Giles Fletcher.