Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LOVE CANNOT DIE, by PHOEBE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOVE CANNOT DIE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Once, when my youth was in its flower
Last Line: Thou still art with me there!
Subject(s): Love


ONCE, when my youth was in its flower,
I lived in an enchanted bower,
Unvexed with fear or care,
With one who made my world so bright,
I thought no darkness and no blight
Could ever enter there

I have no friend like that to-day,
The very bower has passed away;
It was not what it seemed;
I know in all the world of men
There is not and there ne'er has been,
That one of whom I dreamed!

And one I loved and called my friend,
And hoped to walk with to the end,
And on the better shore,
Has changed so cruelly that she,
Out of my years that are to be,
Is lost for evermore.

With his dear eyes in death shut fast,
Sleeps one who loved me to the last,
Beneath the church-yard stone;
Yet hath his spirit always been
Near me to cheer the world wherein
I seem to walk alone.

There was a little golden head
A few brief seasons pillowed
Softly my own beside;
That pillow long has been unprest --
That child yet sleeps upon my breast
As though she had not died,

And seeing that I always hold
Mine earthly loves, in love's sweet fold,
I thus have learned to know,
That He, whose tenderness divine
Surpasses every thought of mine,
Will never let me go.

Yea, thou, whose love, so strong, so great,
Nor life nor death can separate
From souls within thy care;
I know that though in heaven I dwell,
Or go to make my bed in hell,
Thou still art with me there!





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