Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A WHISPER FROM THE GRAVE, by ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O'SHAUGHNESSY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A WHISPER FROM THE GRAVE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: My life points with a radiant hand
Last Line: Among the willow trees down there.
Alternate Author Name(s): O'shaughnessy, Arthur W. E.
Subject(s): Death; Grief; Love - Loss Of; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness


MY life points with a radiant hand,
Along a golden ray of sun
That lights some distant promised land,
A fair way for my feet to run:
My Death stands heavily in gloom,
And digs a soft bed in the tomb
Where I may sleep when all is done.

The flowers take hold upon my feet;
Fair fingers beckon me along;
I find Life's promises so sweet
Each thought within me turns to song:
But Death stands digging for me—lest
Some day I need a little rest,
And come to think the way too long.

O seems there not beneath each rose
A face?—the blush comes burning through;
And eyes my heart already knows
Are filling themselves from the blue,
Above the world; and One, whose hair
Holds all my sun, is coming, fair,
And must bring heaven if all be true:

And now I have face, hair, and eyes;
And lo, the Woman that these make
Is more than flower, and sun, and skies!
Her slender fingers seem to take
My whole fair life, as 'twere a bowl,
Wherein she pours me forth her soul,
And bids me drink it for her sake.

Methinks the world becomes an isle;
And there—immortal, as it seems—
I gaze upon her face, whose smile
Flows round the world in golden streams:
Ah, Death is digging for me deep,
Lest some day I should need to sleep
And solace me with other dreams!

But now I feel as though a kiss
Of hers should ever give me birth
In some new heaven of life-long bliss;
And heedlessly, athwart my mirth,
I see Death digging day by day
A grave; and, very far away,
I hear the falling of the earth.

Ho there, if thou wilt wait for me,
Thou Death!—I say—keep in thy shade;
Crouch down behind the willow tree,
Lest thou shouldst make my love afraid;
If thou hast aught with me, pale friend,
Some flitting leaf its sigh shall lend
To tell me when the grave is made!

And lo, e'en while I now rejoice,
Encircled by my love's fair arm,
There cometh up to me a voice,
Yea, through the fragrance and the charm;
Quite like some sigh the forest heaves
Quite soft—a murmur of dead leaves,
And not a voice that bodeth harm:

O lover, fear not—have thou joy;
For life and love are in thy hands:
I seek in no wise to destroy
The peace thou hast, nor make the sands
Run quicker through thy pleasant span;
Blest art thou above many a man,
And fair is She who with thee stands:

I only keep for thee out here—
O far away, as thou hast said,
Among the willow trees—a clear
Soft space for slumber, and a bed;
That after all, if life be vain,
And love turn at the last to pain,
Thou mayst have ease when thou art dead.

O grieve not: back to thy love's lips,
Let her embrace thee more and more,
Consume that sweet of hers in sips:
I only wait till it is o'er;
For fear thou'lt weary of her kiss,
And come to need a bed like this
Where none shall kiss thee evermore.

Believe each pleasant muttered vow
She makes to thee, and see with ease
Each promised heaven before thee now;
I only think, if one of these
Should fail thee—O thou wouldst need then
To come away right far from men,
And weep beneath the willow trees.

And, therefore, have I made this place,
Where thou shouldst come on that hard day,
Full of a sad and weary grace;
For here the drear wind hath its way
With grass, and flowers, and withered tree—
As sorrow shall that day with thee,
If it should happen as I say.

And, therefore, have I kept the ground,
As 'twere quite holy, year by year;
The great wind lowers to a sound
Of sighing as it passes near;
And seldom doth a man intrude
Upon the hallowed solitude,
And never but to shed a tear.

So, if it be thou come, alas,
For sake of sorrow long and deep,
I—Death, the flowers, and leaves, and grass—
Thy grief-fellows, do mourn and weep:
Or if thou come, with life's whole need
To rest a life-long space indeed,
I too and they do guard thy sleep.

Moreover, sometimes, while all we
Have kept the grave with heaviness,
The weary place hath seemed to be
Not barren of all blessedness:
Spent sunbeams rest them here at noon,
And grieving spirits from the moon
Walk here at night in shining dress.

And there is gazing down on all
Some great and love-like eye of blue,
Wherefrom, at times, there seem to fall
Strange looks that soothe the place quite through;
As though indeed, if all love's sweet
And all life's good should prove a cheat,
They knew some heaven that might be true.

—It is a tender voice like this
That comes to me in accents fair:
Well; and through much of love and bliss,
It seemeth not a thing quite bare
Of comfort, e'en to be possest
Of that one spot of earth for rest,
Among the willow trees down there.





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