Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ELEGY: THE LITTLE GHOST WHO DIED FOR LOVE; FOR ALLANAH HARPER, by EDITH SITWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Fear not, o maidens, shivering Last Line: "but this old world, is sick and soon must die!" Subject(s): Churchill, Deborah (1678-1708); Ghosts; Injustice; Love; Supernatural | ||||||||
Deborah Churchill, born in 1678, was hanged in 1708 for shielding her lover in a duel. His opponent was killed, her lover fled to Holland, and she was hanged in his stead, according to the law of the time. The chronicle said, "Though she died at peace with God, this malefactor could never understand the justice of her sentence, to the last moment of her life." "FEAR not, O maidens, shivering As bunches of the dew-drenched leaves In the calm moonlight . . . it is the cold sends quivering My voice, a little nightingale that grieves. Now Time beats not, and dead Love is forgotten . . . The spirit too is dead and dank and rotten, And I forget the moment when I ran Between my lover and the sworded man -- Blinded with terror lest I lose his heart. The sworded man dropped, and I saw depart Love and my lover and my life . . . he fled And I was strung and hung upon the tree. It is so cold now that my heart is dead And drops through time . . . night is too dark to see Him still. . . . But it is spring; upon the fruit-boughs of your lips, Young maids, the dew like India's splendour drips, Pass by among the strawberry beds, and pluck the berries Cooled by the silver moon; pluck boughs of cherries That seem the lovely lucent coral bough (From streams of starry milk those branches grow) That Cassopeia feeds with her faint light, Like Ethiopia ever jewelled bright. Those lovely cherries do enclose Deep in their sweet hearts the silver snows, And the small budding flowers upon the trees Are filled with sweetness like the bags of bees. Forget my fate . . . but I, a moonlight ghost, Creep down the strawberry paths and seek the lost World, the apothecary at the Fair. I, Deborah, in my long cloak of brown Like the small nightingale that dances down The cherried boughs, creep to the doctor's bare Booth . . . cold as ivy in the air, And, where I stand, the brown and ragged light Holds something still beyond, hid from my sight. Once, plumaged like the sea, his swanskin head Had wintry white quills . . . 'Hearken to the Dead . . . I was a nightingale, but now I croak Like some dark harpy hidden in night's cloak, Upon the walls; among the Dead, am quick; Oh, give me medicine, for the world is sick; Not medicines, planet-spotted like fritillaries For country sins and old stupidities, Nor potions you may give a country maid When she is lovesick . . . love in earth is laid, Grown dead and rotten' . . . so I sank me down, Poor Deborah in my long cloak of brown. Though cockcrow marches, crying of false dawns, Shall bury my dark voice, yet still it mourns Among the ruins, -- for it is not I But this old world, is sick and soon must die!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN THE EVENINGS by LUCILLE CLIFTON THE MOTHS: 1. CIRCA 1582 by NORMAN DUBIE GHOSTS IN ENGLAND by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE GHOST OF DEACON BROWN by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON EN PASSANT by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON AN OLD WOMAN: 2. HARVEST by EDITH SITWELL |
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