Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LOST LILIES, by ALICE CARY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Show you her picture? Here it lies! Last Line: In the resurrection of life shall wake. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The | ||||||||
SHOW you her picture? Here it lies! Hands of lilies, and lily-like brow; Mouth that is bright as a rose, and eyes That are just the soul's sweetest overflow. Darling shoulders, softly pale, Borne by the undulating play Of the life below, up out of their veil, Like lilies out o' the waves o' the May. Throat as white as the throat of a swan, And all as proudly graceful held; Fair, bare bosom, "clothed upon With chastity," like the lady of eld. Tender lids, that drooping down, Chide your glances overbold; Fair, with a golden gleam in the brown, And brown again in the gleamy gold. These on your eyes like a splendor fall, And you marvel not at my love, I see; But it was not one, and it was not all, That made her the angel she was to me. So shut the picture and put it away, Your fancy is only thus misled; What can the dull, cold semblance say, When the spirit and life of the life is fled? Seven long years, and seven again, And three to the seven -- a weary space -- The weary fingers of the rain Have drawn the daisies over her face. Seven and seven years, and three, The leaves have faded to death in the frost, Since the shadow that made for me The world a shadow my pathway crossed. And now and then some meteor gleam Has broken the gloom of my life apart, Or the only thread of some reveled dream Has slid like sunshine in my heart. But never a planet, steady and still, And never a rainbow, brave and fine, And never the flowery head of a hill Has made the cloud of my life to shine. Yet God is love! and this I trust, Though summer is over and sweetness done, That all my lilies are safe, in the dust, As they were in the glow of the great, glad sun. Yea, God is love, and love is might! Mighty as surely to keep as to make; And the sleepers, sleeping in death's dark night, In the resurrection of life shall wake. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND A SPINSTER'S STINT by ALICE CARY |
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