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Poems

By Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

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CXCIII
CONTRADICTIONS

When I am dead, I know that thou wilt weep,
I that have never caused thee grief before,
I that have soothed thee, sung thy woes to sleep,
I shall have wrought thee sorrow wild and deep,
And made thy burden more.
When I am dead, I know thou wilt forget,
Thou that didst never yet forget thy friend.
“Grieve not!” I cry; “I would not have thee fret”—
“Remember! I would live within thee yet.”
In vain, I know the end.