The Dead To The Living
Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the childhood of April, while purple woods
With the young year's blood in them smiled,
I passed through the lanes and the wakened fields,
And stood by the grave of the child.
And the pain awoke that is never dead
Though it sometimes sleeps, and again
It set its teeth in this heart of mine,
And fastened its claws in my brain:
For it seemed so hard that the little hands
And the little well-loved head
Should be out of reach of my living lips,
And be side by side with the dead--
Not side by side with us who had loved,
But with these who had never seen
The grace of the smile, the gold of the hair,
And the eyes of my baby-queen.
Yet with trees about where the brown birds build,
And with long green grass above,
She lies in the cold sweet breast of earth
Beyond the reach of our love;
Whatever befalls in the coarse loud world,
We know she will never wake.
When I thought of the sorrow she might have known,
I was almost glad for her sake. . . .
Tears might have tired those kiss-closed eyes,
Grief hardened the mouth I kissed;
I was almost glad that my dear was dead
Because of the pain she had missed.
Oh, if I could but have died a child
With a white child-soul like hers,
As pure as the wind-flowers down in the copse,
Where the soul of the spring's self stirs;
Or if I had only done with it all,
And might lie by her side unmoved!
I envied the very clods of earth
Their place near the child I loved!
And my soul rose up in revolt at life,
As I stood dry-eyed by her grave,
When sudden the grass of the churchyard sod
Rolled back like a green smooth wave;
The brown earth looked like the brown sea rocks,
The tombstones were white like spray,
And white like surf were the curling folds
Of the shrouds where the dead men lay;
For each in his place with his quiet face
I saw the dead lie low,
Who had worked and suffered and found life sad,
So many sad years ago.
Unchanged by time I saw them lie
As when first they were laid to rest,
The tired eyes closed, the sad lips still,
And the work-worn hands on the breast.
There were some who had found the green world so grey,
They had left it before their time,
And some were little ones like my dear,
And some had died in their prime;
And some were old, they had had their fill
Of bitter unfruitful hours,
And knew that none of them, none, had known
A flower of a hope like ours!
Through their shut eyelids the dead looked up,
And without a voice they said:
'We lived without hope, without hope we died,
And hopeless we lie here dead;
And death is better than life that draws
Pain in, as it draws in breath,
If life never dreams of a coming day
When life shall not envy death.
Through the dark of our hours and our times we lived,
Uncheered by a single ray
Of such hope as lightens the lives of you
Who are finding life hard to-day;
With our little lanterns of human love
We lighted our dark warm night--
But you in the chill of the dawn are set
With your face to the eastern light.
Freedom is waiting with hands held out
Till you tear the veil from her face--
And when once men have seen the light of her eyes,
And felt her divine embrace,
The light of the world will be risen indeed,
And will shine in the eyes of men,
And those who come after will find life fair,
And their lives worth living then!
Will you strive to the light in your loud rough world,
That these things may come to pass,
Or lie in the shadow beside the child,
And strive to the sun through the grass?'
'My world while I may,' I cried; 'but you
Whose lives were as dark as your grave?'
'We too are a part of the coming light,'
They called through the smooth green wave.
Their white shrouds gleamed as the flood of green
Rolled over and hid them from me--
Hid all but the little hands and the hair,
And the face that I always see.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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After Death
IF we must part, this parting is the best:
How would you bear to lay
Your head on some warm pillow far away--
Your head, so used to lying on my breast?
But now your pillow is cold;
Your hands have flowers, and not my hands, to hold;
Upon our bed the worn bride-linen lies.
I have put the death-money upon your eyes,
So that you should not wake up in the night.
I have bound your face with white;
I have washed you, yes, with water and not with tears,--
Those arms wherein I have slept so many years,
Those feet that hastened when they came to me,
And all your body that belonged to me.
I have smoothed your dear dull hair,
And there is nothing left to say for you
And nothing left to fear or pray for you;
And I have got the rest of life to bear:
Thank God it is you, not I, who are lying there.
If I had died
And you had stood beside
This still white bed
Where the white, scented, horrible flowers are spread,--
I know the thing it is,
And I thank God that He has spared you this.
If one must bear it, thank God it was I
Who had to live and bear to see you die,
Who have to live, and bear to see you dead.
You will have nothing of it all to bear:
You will not even know that in your bed
You lie alone. You will not miss my head
Beside you on the pillow: you will rest
So soft in the grave you will not miss my breast.
But I--but I--Your pillow and your place--
And only the darkness laid against my face,
And only my anguish pressed against my side--
Thank God, thank God, that it was you who died!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Too Late
HOPE? What! hope !—you say there is hope for the long-lost one!
Hope! when the light is out; hope! when the oil is done;
Hope! No, no, good lady! no hope for me, at least;
No home for me but the clammy grave when life has ceased.
Hope! Well, there might have been hope had my mother lived; but, then,
5
God struck her dead, and I was left alone among men.
God knows how I loved her; and shall I never see her again?
Is there no glimpse of heaven for those who are doomed to pain?
Oh, cannot she come and kiss me? Oh, cannot she pray by my side,
As she did long ago on that terrible evening before she died?
10
If she prayed God would hear her, and perhaps—but no;
I'm too old a sinner for mercy—there is nothing for me but woe.
You say that I yet could be saved if I sorrowed for my sin;
That the Lord is at heaven's gate to take poor sinners in!
God knows that I hate my sin, but I feel that it cannot be;
15
I've so often forsaken Him, that He must have forsaken me.
Nay, don't offer a prayer for me, lady, it's only mocking at God:
Who knows but my tired heart still may rest beneath the sod?
For I always loved the sunny fields and the sweet, sweet flowers,
And longed to be pure once again like them, in my better hours.
20
But after I first had fallen the devil opened my eyes,
And I saw that the world knew my shame, and I hadn't the heart to rise;
So I gave up trying to be good, and sank down lower in sin,
Tho' the thought of poor dead mother made me always hate it within.
Oh, many's the night that I've wandered about thro' rain and snow,
25
Wandered about in the street, and didn't know where had to go;
And I've often crept to the river and looked at it, still and black,
And thought how every one spurned me—but something held me back.
I remember how once, when I stopped, half-dead, one rainy day,
To rest on his steps for a moment, the servants drove me away;
30
Drove me away like a dog from the door of the man for whom,
O God! I had given up all in this world and beyond the tomb.
But don't weep at my story, good lady; I'm not worth it living or dead!
Ha, ha! I'm not frightened of Death, nor the devils that dance round my bed:
There cannot be any hell deeper nor fuller of devils and strife
35
Than the hell that burns in my heart, and the fire that eats out life.
poem by Frederick George Scott
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Requiescit
I cannot tell his story. He was one
To whom the riddle of our human life
Was strangely put, and who, because of that
And that he could not read it, died. But a short hour
Before he passed, the woman who stood by,
Weeping as once she had wept to see him born,
Tired with her watching looked into his face
And saw the heavy eyelids dropping down
Loaded with sleep. And she, for all her tears,
Bent for the hundredth time to ease his bed.
And, as she almost touched him, smoothing out
The ruffled pillows, close into her ear
He whispered, never lifting up his eyes:
``No matter now. I shall be soon asleep.''
And then, as if he would pursue the thought
A little way as once he loved to do,
And yet too weak to catch it, he went on:
``And what a trouble it has been to keep
This pillow smooth! And in a little while
It will not want another touch; and then--
This aching head of mine will have done with thought.
Thought! Thought!'' But loud the aged woman sobbed,
``Poor soul, poor gentleman.'' So they remained
For a brief space, the goodwife standing there
Knotting her wrinkled hands and he hard by
Upon the bed and breathing heavily.
For he seemed sunk again in that dull trance
Through which men often pass away from life,
When death, as the lion does, has shaken his prey
And he lies numb and dumb and powerless.
She listened. He was telling slowly over
The names of those whom he had loved in youth.
Many were strange to her; and then there came
One she knew well. She started at the sound
She had not heard for years, and bending near
Heard him repeat it twice. She whispered hoarsely:
``Have you no word for her?''--yet stopped again
Because his eyes were open. Doubtingly
They wandered to her own and seemed to say
``Who, and what is it that you ask?'' And she
Spoke it again. He seemed to catch the name
And said it after her, but like a child
Which knows not what it speaks; and afterwards:
``Ah! Bridget, I have quite forgot that story,
And now, in half an hour, it is not long,
I shall have clean forgotten the name too.''
She cried, ``Oh Sir, it is a life too late.
Would God you had forgot it long ago!''
The tears stole slowly down her withered cheeks
And fell upon his hands. She did not move
While he went murmuring on: ``'Tis very well
Thus to forget. And what a wonder too
It now is''--and there came a sudden light
Into his eyes--``that one should ever care
To recollect a single day of life.
I used to think and plan and plot and scheme
How I might build my life in such a way
That I should take fine memories to my grave.
And now what a small matter 'tis to know
How the years went, when death in half an hour
Is all that is left of them! No matter now,
But only to sleep sound in any bed
And have no dreams.'' His eyes grew dim again
As he ceased speaking. And the woman knew
That he was dying. ``He is gone,'' she said.
And then she started muttering half aloud
``They cannot pass without the sacraments,
These gentle--folks.'' And so she hurried out.
The dying man smiled. When they came again,
She whispered in his ear, and looking down
Saw him still smiling; so she lit in haste
A candle by the bed and knelt aside.
They put the holy oils upon his hands,
Which closed upon the fingers of the priest.
The priest bent over him and laid his ear
To the half--open mouth and presently,
Thinking he heard some words, gave absolution.
But, when they would have gone on with the rest,
They found that he was dead. They buried him
With some small pomp to comfort the old dame,
Who said her master was a gentleman
And must be followed with a mourning coach
And mutes and weepers. There was no one else.
His name is cut upon a stone. His dreams
Were written on Time's hem; and Time has fled
And taken him and them. The grass is green
Upon his grave. I cannot doubt he sleeps.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Via Amoris
I.
IT is not Love, this beautiful unrest,
This tremor of longing that invades my breast:
For Love is in his grave this many a year,
He will not rise--I do not wish him here.
It is not memory, for your face and eyes
Are not reflected where that dark pool lies:
It is not hope, for life makes no amends,
And hope and I are long no longer friends:
It is a ghost out of another Spring
It needs but little for its comforting--
That I should hold your hand and see your face
And muse a little in this quiet place,
Where, through the silence, I can hear you sigh
And feel you sadden, O Virgin Mystery,
And know my thought has in your thought begot
Sadness, its child, and that you know it not.
II.
If this were Love, if all this bitter pain
Were but the birth-pang of Love born again,
If through the doubts and dreams resolved, smiled
The prophetic promise of the holy child,
What should I gain? The Love whose dream-lips smiled
Could never be my own and only child,
But to Love's birth would come, with the last pain,
Renunciation, also born again.
III.
If this were Love why should I turn away?
Am I not, too, made of the common clay?
Is life so fair, am I so fortunate,
I can refuse the capricious gift of Fate,
The sudden glory, the unhoped-for flowers,
The transfiguration of my earthly hours?
Come, Love! the house is garnished and is swept,
Washed clean with all the tears that I have wept,
Washed from the stain of my unworthy fears,
Hung with the splendid spoils of wasted years,
Lighted with lamps of hope, and curtained fast
Against the gathered darkness of the past.
I draw the bolts! I throw the portals wide,
The darkness rushes shivering to my side,
Love is not here--the darkness creeps about
My house wherein the lamps of hope die out.
Ah Love! it was not then your hand that came
Beating my door? your voice that called my name?
IV.
'It is not Love, it is not Love,' I said,
And bowed in fearful hope my trembling head.
'It is not Love, for Love could never rise
Out of the rock-hewn grave wherein he lies.'
But as I spake, the heavenly form drew near
Where close I clasped a hope grown keen as fear,
Upon my head His very hand He laid
And whispered, 'It is I, be not afraid!'
V.
And this is Love, no rose-crowned laughing guest
By whom my passionate heart should be caressed,
But one re-risen from the grave; austere,
Cold as the grave, and infinitely dear,
To follow whom I lay the whole world down,
Take up the cross, bind on the thorny crown;
And, following whom, my bleeding pilgrim feet
Find the rough pathway sure and very sweet.
The august environment of mighty wings
Shuts out the snare of vain imaginings,
For by my side, crowned with Love's death-white rose,
The Angel of Renunciation goes.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Quieta Ne Movete II
IF one should wake one's frozen faith
In sunlight of her radiant eyes,
Bid it forget its dream of death,
In this new dream of Paradise,
Bid it forget the long, slow pain,
The agony when, all in vain,
It fought for life, and how one swore,
Once cold, it should not waken more;
If hope one buried long ago
Should thrill beneath those smiles of hers,
Should in one's sere life stir and grow,
As in brown woods the young spring stirs;
If, breaking icy bonds of grief,
One's soul should start to bud and leaf,
It might forget in that springtide
How last year's leaves fell off and died.
If from warm faith and hope set high
A lovely living child was born,
With lips more pure than starlit sky,
And eyes as clear as summer morn,
Child-love might grow till one forgot
Old love, that was and now is not--
Forgot that far-off time of tears,
And all these desolated years.
And yet of faith, hope, love, one knows
So well what end the years will make,
If one should dig beneath Time's snows
And wake them now for her sweet sake.
New life may mean new joy; but then,
What lives again may die again,
And to that second death there may
Be no new resurrection-day.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Death
He, born of my girlhood, is dead, while my life is yet young in my heart
Ere the breasts where his baby lips fed have forgotten their softness, we part.
We part. He was mine, he was here, though he travelled by land and by sea,
My son who could trample on fear, my babe who was moulded in me.
As I sat in the darkness, it seemed I could still feel his touch on my head;
He came in the night as I dreamed, and he knelt at the side of my bed;
He murmured the words I had taught when his lips were the lips of a child,
Ere the strength of his arm had been bought and the love that upheld him defiled;
Then my faltering spirit grew bold, and my heart had forgotten its drouth,
And I crooned little songs as of old, till I woke at his kiss on my mouth.
Now waking and sleeping are pain. Nevermore will he kiss, nevermore
Shall I hear his low whistle again at the gate, or his step on the floor,
For to-night he was here while I slept, and this is the end of it all.
Now that welter of darkness has swept us apart, can he come if I call?
Can he come, little chap with the eyes that brought light out of heaven to earth?
Can he come, though the soul of me cries for the joy that I bought by his birth?
I can see but the horror that bids the heart of the mother despair,
The vision that burns on my lids, the face that will always be there,
For he holds out his hands to me, red, and his eyes tell the truth as he stands.
He is dead. He is dead. He is dead. He is dead, with the blood on his hands.
poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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A Year and a Day
Slow days have passed that make a year,
Slow hours that make a day,
Since I could take my first dear love
And kiss him the old way;
Yet the green leaves touch me on the cheek,
Dear Christ, this month of May.
I lie among the tall green grass
That bends above my head
And covers up my wasted face
And folds me in its bed
Tenderly and lovingly
Like grass above the dead.
Dim phantoms of an unknown ill
Float through my tired brain;
The unformed visions of my life
Pass by in ghostly train;
Some pause to touch me on the cheek,
Some scatter tears like rain.
A shadow falls along the grass
And lingers at my feet;
A new face lies between my hands --
Dear Christ, if I could weep
Tears to shut out the summer leaves
When this new face I greet.
Still it is but the memory
Of something I have seen
In the dreamy summer weather
When the green leaves came between:
The shadow of my dear love’s face --
So far and strange it seems.
The river ever running down
Between its grassy bed,
The voices of a thousand birds
That clang above my head,
Shall bring to me a sadder dream
When this sad dream is dead.
A silence falls upon my heart
And hushes all its pain.
I stretch my hands in the long grass
And fall to sleep again,
There to lie empty of all love
Like beaten corn of grain.
poem by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal
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The Last Look
W. W. SWAIN
BEHOLD--not him we knew!
This was the prison which his soul looked through,
Tender, and brave, and true.
His voice no more is heard;
And his dead name--that dear familiar word--
Lies on our lips unstirred.
He spake with poet's tongue;
Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung:
He shall not die unsung.
Grief tried his love, and pain;
And the long bondage of his martyr-chain
Vexed his sweet soul,--in vain!
It felt life's surges break,
As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake,
Smiling while tempests wake.
How can we sorrow more?
Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before
To that untrodden shore!
Lo, through its leafy screen,
A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green,
Untrodden, half unseen!
Here let his body rest,
Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best
May slide above his breast.
Smooth his uncurtained bed;
And if some natural tears are softly shed,
It is not for the dead.
Fold the green turf aright
For the long hours before the morning's light,
And say the last Good Night!
And plant a clear white stone
Close by those mounds which hold his loved, his own,--
Lonely, but not alone.
Here let him sleeping lie,
Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky
And Death himself shall die!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Evelyn Hope
I
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.
II
Sixteen years old, when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,—
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
III
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew—
And, just because I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, nought beside?
IV
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
V
But the time will come,—at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red—
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.
VI
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!
VII
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while.
My heart seemed full as it could hold?
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Song Of Keats
'TIS a tarnished book and old,
Edges frayed and covers green!
But, between the covers, gold —
Gold and jewels in between.
And this written (see, O see!
How old Time has made it dim)
'For one song Keats gave to me
I kneel down and worship him.'
He who wrote these lines is dust;
All of him is passed away;
Some hand closed his eyes, I trust,
Drew the blind to darken day.
Did lips kiss him at the end,
Love-lips tremulous yet brave?
Had he mistress, child, or friend
To sow green grass upon his grave?
Nay, we know not — it is long
Since he tired of Life's deceits,
Closed his ears to sigh and song,
Parted with this book, JOHN KEATS.
Year by year the Poet thrives;
Summer smiles and winter weeps;
La Belle Dame Sans Merci lives,
But a heart that loved her sleeps.
Who would woeful go to miss
Roses red in thorns arrayed,
When he might with surer bliss
Love a milkwhite Devon maid?
Beauty kindles man's desire,
Beauty dwindles, growing faint;
But the girls who never tire
Are the girls that poets paint.
When the moon has taken wings
And the twilight hour is come,
Grey the woods, and no bird sings:
Grey the world beyond, and dumb:
Neither light is there nor breeze,
Rose to redden, thorn to pain;
Till, look! look! Among the trees
A sudden bird! a scarlet stain!
So he tired of Fate's defeats,
Life's dead trees and woodlands grim,
Till sudden-sweet a song of Keats
One magic moment gave to him.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Here Lie's The truth
“Here Lies the truth”,
On Her tombstone this will be wrote.
It was never spoke when She was living,
So also in death, it will be unspoke.
By Her it was never said
it was as though pulling out Her soul,
So here lies the truth and herself dead
Both has died in sadness and woe.
Here lies the truth,
Not once by her was it cried,
Not in the days that she was living,
Not even in the day that She had died.
She must of believed that it was a sin
To open Her heart and listen to the word
So She closed her heart and locked it shut,
And She never believed in no one but Her.
Here lies the truth,
It lived but a very short life,
Though the Woman died of years of age
The truth though, never had a chance to try.
Everyone She knew had learned Her lie
They never believed a word that she said
So when She finally tried to speak the truth,
Her heart stopped; and She laid dead.
Here lies the truth
It lived but a very short life,
It was loved by neither Child or Man,
For they believe its living was but a lie.
So here in the grave it will lay dead
As it had lived in this woman's soul,
Never again will it be uttered or thought of,
Never till the end of time will it be thought of or known.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
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When I Think Of Myself As Dead
WHEN I THINK OF MYSELF AS DEAD
When I think of myself as dead
I think of what it will mean for my loved ones
I pray they will not lose heart and hope because of it-
When my father died my brother lost hope-
When I think of myself dead
I wonder about God and God�s purpose
Is there really an afterlife?
What could it mean?
Will I meet again those who have gone before me?
When I think of myself dead
I think about a body in the ground
Worms eating it, cold paining it-
When I think of myself as dead
I think about never feeling anything again-
When I think about myself as dead
I think about the work I have left behind
And whether it will mean anything to anyone
And for how long-
When I think of myself as dead
I think of all the memories that will go with me
I think about nothing and more nothing and the end of the universe-
When I think of myself as dead
I think of life going on down below
Life with all its beauty and pain
And I pray and I pray again
My loved ones will be able to manage and make their own lives still happy
When I think of myself as dead
I pray to G-d
That somehow in some way
It will not be the end for me forever.
When I think of myself as dead
I think of myself as living again somehow
In a way I cannot now know-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Pilgrims
Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.
--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky
And go forth naked under sun and rain
And work and wait and watch out all his years.
--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?
--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;
For if she be not in the spirit of men,
For if in the inward soul she hath no place,
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.
--O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?
For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,
That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.
--These have we not, who have one thing, the divine
Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.
--And ye shall die before your thrones be won.
--Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun
Shall move and shine without us, and we lie
Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,
But if the old world with all the old irons rent
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,
Life being so little and death so good to give.
--And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,
And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed
Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead
Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire
Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.
--But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,
That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;
When mother and father and tender sister and brother
And the old live love that was shall be as ye,
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.
--She shall be yet who is more than all these were,
Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.
--Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,
The venerable, in the past that is their prison,
In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,
Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?
--Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save.
--Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,
Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?
Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?
--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,
Than all things save the inexorable desire
Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.
--Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?
Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow.
Even this your dream, that by much tribulation
Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?
--Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,
Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;
But man to man, nation would turn to nation,
And the old life live, and the old great world be great.
--Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,
For what light think ye after life to see?
And if the world fare better will ye know?
And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?
--Enough of light is this for one life's span,
That all men born are mortal, but not man:
And we men bring death lives by night to sow,
That man may reap and eat and live by day.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At A Funeral
I loved her too, this woman who is dead.
Look in my face. I have a right to go
And see the place where you have made her bed
Among the snow.
I loved her too whom you are burying.
I have a right to stand beside her bier,
And to my handful of the dust I fling,
That she may hear.
I loved her; and it was not for the eyes
Which you have shut, nor for her yellow hair,
Nor for the face which in your bosom lies.
Let it lie there!
Nor for the wild--birds' music of her voice,
Which we shall hear in dreams till we too sleep;
Nor for the rest, which made the world rejoice,
The angels weep.
It was not for the payment of sweet love,
Though love is often straitened for a kiss,
Nor for the hope of other joys above,
But only this,
That she had laid her hand upon my heart
Once in the summer time when we were young,
And that her finger--tips had left a smart,
And that my tongue
Had spoken words which might not be unspoken
Lest they should make a by--word of love's truth,
And I had sworn that love should be the token
Of my youth.
And so I gave her all, and long ago
The treasure of my youth was put in pawn;
And she was little richer that I know
When that was gone.
But I have lived a beggar since that day
And hide my face it may be from men's eyes;
For often I have seen them shrink away,
As in surprise
That such a loathsome cripple should be found
To walk abroad in daylight with the rest,
And scarce a rag to cover up the wound
Upon his breast.
Yet no man stopped to ask how this might be,
Or I had scared them, and let loose my tongue,
How I had bought myself this misery
When I was young.
Yet I have loved her. This must be my pay,
The pension I have earned me with these tears;
The right to kneel beside her grave to--day,
Despite these years,
With all her kisses burning on my cheek,
As when I left her and our love was dead,
And our lips trembled though they did not speak,
The night I fled;
The right to bid you stand aside, nor be
A witness of our meeting. Did you love
In joy as I have loved in misery?
You did not prove
Your love was stronger than the strength of death,
Or she had never died upon your hand.
I would have fed her breathing with my breath;
I would have fanned
A living wind of Heaven to her lips;
I would have stolen life from Paradise.
And she is dead, and you have seen eclipse
Within those eyes.
If I could know that you had loved her well;
If I could hold it for a certainty
That you had sold your life as I did sell;
If I could see
The blackness of your soul, and with my tongue
Taste the full bitterness of tears unshed;
If I should find your very heart was wrung
And maimed and dead;
If I should feel your hand's grasp crumble mine,
And hug the pain when I should grasp in turn;
If I could dip my fingers in the brine
Of eyes that burn;
If I could hear your voice call back the dead
With such a mighty cry of agony
That she should turn and listen in the bed
Where she doth lie,
And all the heavens should together roll,
Thinking they heard the angel's trumpet tone,
I could forget it that you bought a soul
Which was my own;
I could forget that she forgot her vows,
That aught was bartered for the wealth of love;
I could untell the story of my woes,
Till God above
Should hold her guiltless and condone the wrong
Done to His justice; I could take your hand
And call you brother, as we went along
To take our stand
Before His judgment--seat with her again
Where we are hurrying,--for we could not keep
Our place unchallenged in the ranks of men
Who do not weep.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Les Noyades
WHATEVER a man of the sons of men
Shall say to his heart of the lords above,
They have shown man verily, once and again,
Marvellous mercies and infinite love.
In the wild fifth year of the change of things,
When France was glorious and blood-red, fair
With dust of battle and deaths of kings,
A queen of men, with helmeted hair,
Carrier came down to the Loire and slew,
Till all the ways and the waves waxed red:
Bound and drowned, slaying two by two,
Maidens and young men, naked and wed.
They brought on a day to his judgment-place
One rough with labour and red with fight,
And a lady noble by name and face,
Faultless, a maiden, wonderful, white.
She knew not, being for shame’s sake blind,
If his eyes were hot on her face hard by.
And the judge bade strip and ship them, and bind
Bosom to bosom, to drown and die.
The white girl winced and whitened; but he
Caught fire, waxed bright as a great bright flame
Seen with thunder far out on the sea,
Laughed hard as the glad blood went and came.
Twice his lips quailed with delight, then said,
“I have but a word to you all, one word;
Bear with me; surely I am but dead;”
And all they laughed and mocked him and heard.
“Judge, when they open the judgment-roll,
I will stand upright before God and pray:
‘Lord God, have mercy on one man’s soul,
For his mercy was great upon earth, I say.
“‘Lord, if I loved thee—Lord, if I served—
If these who darkened thy fair Son’s face
I fought with, sparing not one, nor swerved
A hand’s-breadth, Lord, in the perilous place—
“‘I pray thee say to this man, O Lord,
Sit thou for him at my feet on a throne.
I will face thy wrath, though it bite as a sword,
And my soul shall burn for his soul, and atone.
“‘For, Lord, thou knowest, O God most wise,
How gracious on earth were his deeds towards me.
Shall this be a small thing in thine eyes,
That is greater in mine than the whole great sea?’
“I have loved this woman my whole life long,
And even for love’s sake when have I said
‘I love you’? when have I done you wrong,
Living? but now I shall have you dead.
“Yea, now, do I bid you love me, love?
Love me or loathe, we are one not twain.
But God be praised in his heaven above
For this my pleasure and that my pain!
“For never a man, being mean like me,
Shall die like me till the whole world dies.
I shall drown with her, laughing for love; and she
Mix with me, touching me, lips and eyes.
“Shall she not know me and see me all through,
Me, on whose heart as a worm she trod?
You have given me, God requite it you,
What man yet never was given of God.”
O sweet one love, O my life’s delight,
Dear, though the days have divided us,
Lost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,
Not twice in the world shall the gods do thus.
Had it been so hard for my love? but I,
Though the gods gave all that a god can give,
I had chosen rather the gift to die,
Cease, and be glad above all that live.
For the Loire would have driven us down to the sea,
And the sea would have pitched us from shoal to shoal;
And I should have held you, and you held me,
As flesh holds flesh, and the soul the soul.
Could I change you, help you to love me, sweet,
Could I give you the love that would sweeten death,
We should yield, go down, locked hands and feet,
Die, drown together, and breath catch breath;
But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,
And known that once if I loved you well;
And I would have given my soul for this
To burn for ever in burning hell.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Lament
PEACE, your little child is dead:
Peace, I cannot weep with you;
I have no more tears to shed;
I have mourned my baby too—
I, that ne'er was wooed or wed.
Love has looked within your eyes,
Love has filled your hungry heart;
You have borne the babe, your prize;
You have blossomed, done your part,
Though the flower faded lies.
But to me was love denied—
God had said it might not be;
Still my hungry hopes abide;
All the motherhood in me
Aches—and starves, unsatisfied.
How my soul has yearned for thee,
Sweet, sweet unborn child of mine!
How thy life would tenderly
Round thy mother's life entwine—
Hope of hopes that may not be.
How thy hands would pluck my breast!
I have felt them o'er and o'er,
And thy soft, sweet skin caressed,
Baby mine I never bore!
Did I dream so?—dreams are best.
You have nothing now to fear,
Mother; you have fondled him,
Held his pretty face so near,
Laid your lips to each soft limb—
He is dead, but he was dear.
You have something you may mourn,
Some sweet memory to kiss;
I am lonelier, more forlorn;
God has left me only this—
My sweet babe that was not born.
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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The Old Wife and the New
He sat beneath the curling vines
That round the gay verandah twined,
His forehead seamed with sorrow’s lines,
An old man with a weary mind.
His young wife, with a rosy face
And brown arms ambered by the sun,
Went flitting all about the place—
Master and mistress both in one.
What caused that old man’s look of care?
Was she not blithe and fair to see?
What blacker than her raven hair,
What darker than her eyes might be?
The old man bent his weary head;
The sunlight on his gray hair shone;
His thoughts were with a woman dead
And buried, years and years agone:
The good old wife who took her stand
Beside him at the altar-side,
And walked with him, hand clasped in hand,
Through joy and sorrow till she died.
Ah, she was fair as heart’s desire,
And gay, and supple-limbed, in truth,
And in his veins there leapt like fire
The hot red blood of lusty youth.
She stood by him in shine and shade,
And, when hard-beaten at his best,
She took him like a child and laid
His aching head upon her breast.
She helped him make a little home
Where once were gum-trees gaunt and stark,
And bloodwoods waved green-feathered foam—
Working from dawn of day to dark,
Till that dark forest formed a frame
For vineyards that the gods might bless,
And what was savage once became
An Eden in the wilderness.
And how at their first vintage-time
She laughed and sang—you see such shapes
On vases of the Grecian prime—
And danced a reel upon the grapes!
And ever, as the years went on,
All things she kept with thrifty hand,
Till never shone the sun upon
A fairer homestead in the land.
Then children came—ah, me! ah, me!
Sad blessings that a mother craves!
That old man from his seat could see
The shadows playing o’er their graves.
And then she closed her eyes at last,
Her gentle, useful, peaceful life
Was over—garnered with the past;
God rest thee gently, Good Old Wife!
His young wife has a rosy face,
And laughs, with reddest lips apart,
But cannot fill the empty place
Within that old man’s lonely heart.
His young wife has a rosy face,
And brown arms ambered by the sun,
Goes flitting all about the place,
Master and mistress both in one;
But though she sings, or though she sighs,
He sees her not—he sees instead
A gray-haired Shade with gentle eyes—
The good old wife, long dead, long dead.
He sits beneath the curling vines,
Through which the merry sunrays dart,
His forehead seamed with sorrow’s lines—
An old man with a broken heart.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Complaint of Lisa
There is no woman living who draws breath
So sad as I, though all things sadden her.
There is not one upon life's weariest way
Who is weary as I am weary of all but death.
Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower
All day with all his whole soul toward the sun;
While in the sun's sight I make moan all day,
And all night on my sleepless maiden bed.
Weep and call out on death, O Love, and thee,
That thou or he would take me to the dead.
And know not what thing evil I have done
That life should lay such heavy hand on me.
Alas! Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?
What honor shalt thou have to quench my breath,
Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?
O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed:
I am the least flower in thy flowery way,
But till my time be come that I be dead,
Let me live out my flower-time in the sun,
Though my leaves shut before the sunflower.
O Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower!
Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me,
That live down here in shade, out of the sun,
Here living in the sorrow and shadow of death?
Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day
Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath?
Because she loves him, shall my lord love her
Who is as a worm in my lord's kingly way?
I shall not see him or know him alive or dead;
But thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee
That in brief while my brief life-days be done,
And the worm quickly make my marriage-bed.
For underground there is no sleepless bed.
But here since I beheld my sunflower
These eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day
His sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun.
Wherefore, if anywhere be any death,
I fain would find and fold him fast to me,
That I may sleep with the world's eldest dead,
With her that died seven centuries since, and her
That went last night down the night-wandering way.
For this is sleep indeed, when labor is done,
Without love, without dreams, and without breath,
And without thought, O name unnamed! of thee.
Ah! but, forgetting all things, shall I thee?
Wilt thou not be as now about my bed
There underground as here before the sun?
Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead,
Thy moving vision without form or breath?
I read long since the bitter tale of her
Who read the tale of Launcelot on a day,
And died, and had no quiet after death,
But was moved ever along a weary way,
Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me,
O my king, O my lordly sunflower,
Would God to me, too, such a thing were done!
But if such sweet and bitter things be done,
Then, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee.
For in that living world without a sun
Thy vision will lay hold upon me dead,
And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death.
Yet if being wroth, God had such pity on her,
Who was a sinner and foolish in her day,
That even in hell they twain should breathe one breath,
Why should he not in some wise pity me?
So if I sleep not in my soft strait bed,
I may look up and see my sunflower
As he the sun, in some divine strange way.
O poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way
This sore sweet evil unto us was done.
For on a holy and a heavy day
I was arisen out of my still small bed
To see the knights tilt, and one said to me
"The king;" and seeing him, somewhat stopped my breath;
And if the girl spake more, I heard her not,
For only I saw what I shall see when dead,
A kingly flower of knights, a sunflower,
That shone against the sunlight like the sun,
And like a fire, O heart, consuming thee,
The fire of love that lights the pyre of death.
Howbeit I shall not die an evil death
Who have loved in such a sad and sinless way,
That this my love, lord, was no shame to thee.
So when mine eyes are shut against the sun,
O my soul's sun, O the world's sunflower,
Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead.
And dying I pray with all my low last breath
That thy whole life may be as was that day,
That feast-day that made trothplight death and me,
Giving the world light of thy great deeds done;
And that fair face brightening thy bridal bed,
That God be good as God hath been to her.
That all things goodly and glad remain with her,
All things that make glad life and goodly death;
That as a bee sucks from a sunflower
Honey, when summer draws delighted breath,
Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way,
And love make life a fruitful marriage-bed
Where day may bring forth fruits of joy to day
And night to night till days and nights be dead.
And as she gives light of her love to thee,
Give thou to her the old glory of days long done;
And either give some heat of light to me,
To warm me where I sleep without the sun.
O sunflower make drunken with the sun,
O knight whose lady's heart draws thine to her,
Great king, glad lover, I have a word to thee.
There is a weed lives out of the sun's way,
Hid from the heat deep in the meadow's bed,
That swoons and whitens at the wind's least breath,
A flower star-shaped, that all a summer day
Will gaze her soul out on the sunflower
For very love till twilight finds her dead.
But the great sunflower heeds not her poor death,
Knows not when all her loving life is done;
And so much knows my lord the king of me.
Ay, all day long he has no eye for me;
With golden eye following the golden sun
From rose-colored to purple-pillowed bed,
From birthplace to the flame-lit place of death,
From eastern end to western of his way,
So mine eye follows thee, my sunflower,
So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee,
The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead,
Trod under foot if any pass by her,
Pale, without color of summer or summer breath
In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done
No work but love, and die before the day.
But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day,
Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me.
Thy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun
Shall drop its golden seed in the world's way,
That all men thereof nourished shall praise thee
For grain and flower and fruit of works well done;
Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower,
Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed
As like the sun shall outlive age and death.
And yet I would thine heart had heed of her
Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead.
Come, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath.
Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead;
From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee,
To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death
Down the sun's way after the flying sun,
For love of her that gave thee wings and breath
Ere day be done, to seek the sunflower.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Tryst
I raised the veil, I loosed the bands,
I took the dead thing from its place.
Like a warm stream in frozen lands
My lips went wandering on her face,
My hands burnt in her hands.
She could not stay me, being dead;
Her body here was mine to hold.
What if her lips had lost their red?
To me they always tasted cold
With the cold words she said.
Did my breath run along her hair,
And free the pulse, and fire the brain,
My wild blood wake her wild blood there?
Here eyelids lifted wide again
In a blue, sudden stare.
Beneath my fierce, profane caress
The whole white length of body moved;
The drowsy bosom seemed to press
As if against a breast beloved,
Then fail for weariness.
No, not that anguish! Christ forbid
That I should raise such dead! I rose,
Stifled the mouth with lilies, hid
Those eyes, And drew the long hair close,
And shut the coffin lid.
My cold brow on the cold wood laid,
Quiet and close to-night we lie.
No cruel words her lips have said.
I shall not take nor she deny.
The dead is with the dead.
poem by Muriel Stuart
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The Mother's Soul
When the moon was horned the mother died,
And the child pulled at her hand and knee,
And he rubbed her cheek and loudly cried:
'O mother, arise, give bread to me!'
But the pine tree bent its head,
And the wind at the door-post said:
'O child, thy mother is dead !'
The sun set his loom to weave the day;
The frost bit sharp like a silent cur;
The child by her pillow paused in his play:
'Mother, build up the sweet fire of fir !'
But the fir tree shook its cones,
And loud cried the pitiful stones:
'Wolf Death has thy mother's bones!'
They bore the mother out on her bier;
Their tears made warm her breast and shroud;
The smiling child at her head stood near;
And the long, white tapers shook and bowed,
And said with their tongues of gold,
To the ice lumps of the grave mold:
'How heavy are ye and cold!'
They buried the mother; to the feast
They flocked with the beaks of unclean crows.
The wind came up from the red-eyed east
And bore in its arms the chill, soft snows.
They said to each other: 'Sere
Are the hearts the mother held dear;
Forgotten, her babe plays here!'
The child with the tender snowflakes played,
And the wind on its fingers twined his hair;
And still by the tall, brown grave he stayed,
Alone in the churchyard lean and bare.
The sods on the high grave cried
To the mother's white breast inside:
'Lie still; in thy deep rest bide!'
Her breast lay still like a long-chilled stone,
Her soul was out on the bleak, grey day;
She saw her child by the grave alone,
With the sods and snow and wind at play.
Said the sharp lips of the rush,
'Red as thy roses,O bush,
With anger the dead can blush !'
A butterfly to the child's breast flew,*
Fluttered its wings on his sweet, round cheek,
Danced by his fingers, small, cold and blue.
The sun strode down past the mountain peak.
The butterfly whispered low
To the child: 'Babe, follow me; know,
Cold is the earth here below.'
The butterfly flew; followed the child,
Lured by the snowy torch of its wings;
The wind sighed after them soft and wild
Till the stars wedded night with golden rings
Till the frost upreared its head,
And the ground to it groaned and said:
'The feet of the child are lead!'
The child's head drooped to the brown, sere mold,
On the crackling cones his white breast lay;
The butterfly touched the locks of gold,
The soul of the child sprang from its clay.
The moon to the pine tree stole,
And silver-lipped, said to its bole:
'How strong is the mother's soul !'
The wings of the butterfly grew out
To the mother's arms, long, soft and white;
She folded them warm her babe about,
She kissed his lips into berries bright,
She warmed his soul on her breast;
And the east called out to the west:
'Now the mother's soul will rest!'
Under the roof where the burial feast
Was heavy with meat and red with wine,
Each crossed himself as out of the east
A strange wind swept over oak and pine.
The trees to the home-roof said:
' 'Tis but the airy rush and tread
Of angels greeting thy dead.'
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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