 | Later Poems |  |
52
Love and Grief
I
Dead Love, dead Love, now shall thy burial be!
I give thee rainbowed hope to be thy shroud:
I lay the beauty maketh women proud
On thy dead heart: I set my girlhood's glee
In that strait bed which now doth compass thee,
Immortal as I thought, to mortal bowed,
With all thy supreme godhead disallowed.
Dead Love, dead Love, and what shall comfort me?
I give thee rainbowed hope to be thy shroud:
I lay the beauty maketh women proud
On thy dead heart: I set my girlhood's glee
In that strait bed which now doth compass thee,
Immortal as I thought, to mortal bowed,
With all thy supreme godhead disallowed.
Dead Love, dead Love, and what shall comfort me?
What new fresh loveliness will yet arise
From his dear dust and ashes, his that erst
Made the whole realm of beauty pale and dim?
What blossom of glory from his grave shall burst?
I will not look and see it with the eyes
That opened at his kiss, and looked on him.
From his dear dust and ashes, his that erst
Made the whole realm of beauty pale and dim?
What blossom of glory from his grave shall burst?
I will not look and see it with the eyes
That opened at his kiss, and looked on him.
53
II
Alas for the mortality of grief!
Next year, perhaps, and next year I may shun
The full sweet life of things beneath the sun,
But only now am I of mourners chief.
Too soon I shall have drunken Time's relief!
A little while, and healing will have run
Through every vein, forgetfulness begun!
O Love, dead Love, that woe should be so brief!
Next year, perhaps, and next year I may shun
The full sweet life of things beneath the sun,
But only now am I of mourners chief.
Too soon I shall have drunken Time's relief!
A little while, and healing will have run
Through every vein, forgetfulness begun!
O Love, dead Love, that woe should be so brief!
And shall this be indeed the end of all?
The sleepy drench of Time to soothe and lull
Into the calm that now I shudder from?
This hand, which felt thy bosom throb, to cull
Flowers from thy grave for memory-coronal?
O Love, that to this fashion Grief should come!
The sleepy drench of Time to soothe and lull
Into the calm that now I shudder from?
This hand, which felt thy bosom throb, to cull
Flowers from thy grave for memory-coronal?
O Love, that to this fashion Grief should come!
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