Tag: The Dead

The Vain Spell by Edith Nesbit

The house sleeps dark and the moon wakes white,
The fields are alight with dew;
‘Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night?
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew,
O Heart of my heart, I knew by my heart,
That the night of all nights is this,
When elm shall crack and lead shall part,
When moulds shall sunder and shot bolts start
To let you through to my kiss.’

So spake she alone in the lonely house.
She had wrapped her round with the spell,
She called the call, she vowed the vow,
And the heart she had pledged knew well
That this was the night, the only night,
When the moulds might be wrenched apart,
When the living and dead, in the dead of the night,
Might clasp once more, in the grave’s despite,
For the price of a living heart.

But out in the grave the corpse lay white
And the grave clothes were wet with dew;
‘Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night,
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew
That I dared not leave my grave for an hour
Since the hour of all hours is near,
When you shall come to the hollow bower,
In a cast of the wind, in a waft of the Power,
To the heart that to-night beats here!’

The moon grows pale and the house sleeps still
Ah, God! do the dead forget?
The grave is white and the bed is chill,
But a guest may be coming yet.
But the hour has come and the hour has gone
That never will come again;
Love’s only chance is over and done,
And the quick and the dead are twain, not one,
And the price has been paid in vain.

Death’s Chill Between by Christina Rossetti

Chide not; let me breathe a little,
For I shall not mourn him long;
Though the life-cord was so brittle,
The love-cord was very strong.
I would wake a little space
Till I find a sleeping-place.

You can go, – I shall not weep;
You can go unto your rest.
My heart-ache is all too deep,
And too sore my throbbing breast.
Can sobs be, or angry tears,
Where are neither hopes nor fears?

Though with you I am alone
And must be so everywhere,
I will make no useless moan, –
None shall say ‘She could not bear:’
While life lasts I will be strong, –
But I shall not struggle long.

Listen, listen! Everywhere
A low voice is calling me,
And a step is on the stair,
And one comes ye do not see,
Listen, listen! Evermore
A dim hand knocks at the door.

Hear me; he is come again, –
My own dearest is come back.
Bring him in from the cold rain;
Bring wine, and let nothing lack.
Thou and I will rest together,
Love, until the sunny weather.

I will shelter thee from harm, –
Hide thee from all heaviness.
Come to me, and keep thee warm
By my side in quietness.
I will lull thee to thy sleep
With sweet songs: – we will not weep.

Who hath talked of weeping? – Yet
There is something at my heart,
Gnawing, I would fain forget,
And an aching and a smart.
– Ah! my mother, ’tis in vain,
For he is come again.

Haunted by Dora Sigerson Shorter

How restless are the dead whose silent feet will stray
In to our lone retreat or solitary way;
Within the dew-wet wood or sun-enchanted lane
We meet them face to face, we hear them speak again.

How powerful are the dead whose voices ever speak,
So softly by our side in accents faint and weak:
They bid us go or stay, or do, or leave undone,
We hear them breathe our name ere dawn has well begun.

How silent are the dead when come accusing fears
To chide our aching hearts, to fill our days with tears:
They hush not now our grief, nor heed us as we plead
For some unspoken word, or some ungentle deed.

Beside the golden fire they take the empty chair
They tread from room to room, they pass from stair to stair,
And when comes tranquil night to call to us to sleep
Within our pleasant dreams the restless dead will creep.

How pitiless the dead who come in dearest guise
And most belovéd ways before our wistful eyes;
To cry to us lost words that we remembered not,
To act again each scene that we had half forgot.

And should we seek to ease our heart with some caress
How timidly they fly and leave us loneliness:
How fugitive the dead who at our stricken call
Hide in the chilly tomb and answer not at all.

Song by Arthur O’Shaughnessy 

 

I made another garden, yea,

For my new Love;

I left the dead rose where it lay

And set the new above.

Why did my Summer not begin?

Why did my heart not haste?

My old Love came and walk’d therein,

And laid the garden waste.

She enter’d with her weary smile,

Just as of old;

She look’d around a little while

And shiver’d at the cold:

Her passing touch was death to all,

Her passing look a blight;

She made the white rose-petals fall,

And turn’d the red rose white.

Her pale robe clinging to the grass

Seem’d like a snake

That bit the grass and ground, alas!

And a sad trail did make.

She went up slowly to the gate,

And then, just as of yore,

She turn’d back at the last to wait

And say farewell once more.