Classic and Contemporary Poetry
IN LOVE'S ETERNITY, by ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O'SHAUGHNESSY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: My body was part of the sun and the dew Last Line: As my love; and together we wept. Alternate Author Name(s): O'shaughnessy, Arthur W. E. Subject(s): Future Life; Heaven; Love; Reunions; Retribution; Eternity; After Life; Paradise | ||||||||
MY body was part of the sun and the dew, Not a trace of my death to me clave, There was scarce a man left on the earth whom I knew, And another was laid in my grave. I was changed and in heaven, the great sea of blue Had long washed my soul pure in its wave. My sorrow was turned to a beautiful dress, Very fair for my weeping was I; And my heart was renewed, but it bore none the less The great wound that had brought me to die, The deep wound that She gave who wrought all my distress; Ah, my heart loved her still in the sky! I wandered alone where the stars' tracks were bright; I was beauteous and holy and sad; I was thinking of her who of old had the might To have blest me, and made my death glad; I remembered how faithless she was, and how light, Yea, and how little pity she had. My soul had forgiven each separate tear, She had bitterly wrung from my eyes; But I thought of her lightness,ah! sore was my fear She would fall somewhere never to rise, And that no one would love her, to bring her soul near To the heavens, where love never dies. She had drawn me with feigning, and held me a day; She had taken the passionate price That my heart gave for love, with no doubt or delay, For I thought that her smile would suffice; She had played with and wasted and then cast away The true heart that could never love twice. And false must she be; she had followed the cheat That ends loveless and hopeless below: I remembered her words' cruel worldly deceit When she bade me forget her and go. She could ne'er have believed after death we might meet, Or she would not have let me die so. I thought, and was sad: the blue fathomless seas Bore the white clouds in luminous throng; And the souls that had loved were in each one of these; They passed by with a great upward song: They were going to wander beneath the fair trees, In high Edentheir joy would be long. How sweet to look back to that desolate space When the heaven scarce my heaven seemed! She came suddenly, swiftly,a great healing grace Filled her features, and forth from her streamed. With a cry our lips met, and a long close embrace Made the past like a thing I had dreamed. "Ah, Love!" she began, "when I found you were dead, I was changed, and the world was changed too; On a sudden I felt that the sunshine had fled, And the flowers and summer gone too; Life but mocked me; I found there was nothing instead But to turn back and weep all in you. "When you were not there to fall down at my feet, And pour out the whole passionate store Of the heart that was made to make my heart complete, In true words that my memory bore, Then I found that those words were the only words sweet, And I knew I should hear them no more. "Ah, yes! but your love was a fair magic toy, That you gave to a child, who scarce deigned To glance at itforsook it for some passing joy, Never guessing the charm it contained; But you gave it and left it, and none could destroy The fair talisman where it remained. "And, surely, no child, but a woman at last Found your gift where the child let it lie, Understood the whole secret it held, sweet and vast, The fair treasure a world could not buy; And believed not the meaning could ever have past, Any more than the giver could die." She ceased. To my soul's deepest sources the sense Of her words with a full healing crept, And my heart was delivered with rapture intense From the wound and the void it had kept; Then I saw that her heart was a heaven immense As my love; and together we wept. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE END OF LIFE by PHILIP JAMES BAILEY SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 6 by CONRAD AIKEN THE BOOK OF THE DEAD MAN (#19): 2. MORE ABOUT THE DEAD MAN AND WINTER by MARVIN BELL THE WORLDS IN THIS WORLD by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR A SKELETON FOR MR. PAUL IN PARADISE; AFTER ALLAN GUISINGER by NORMAN DUBIE BEAUTY & RESTRAINT by DANIEL HALPERN HOW IT WILL HAPPEN, WHEN by DORIANNE LAUX IF THIS IS PARADISE by DORIANNE LAUX SONNET: CUPID AND VENUS by MARK ALEXANDER BOYD MORTAL COMBAT by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE THE CHURCH OF A DREAM; TO BERNHARD BERENSON by LIONEL PIGOT JOHNSON |
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