Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOO LATE, by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOO LATE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What dead! - and I was only yesternight
Last Line: You are gone from me. Oh! Too late! Too late!
Alternate Author Name(s): Home, Cecil; Webster, Mrs. Julia Augusta
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


WHAT dead!--And I was only yesternight
Revolving eager schemes for my redemption
Out of these depths where I have plunged myself,
Thinking I saw her with her earnest eyes
Smile like the angels on the penitent.
And then, Oh God! just in my hopefulness,
Then did the arrow pierce me--"she may die."
But could I think that such an agony
Could come upon me?--nay 'twas past belief.
How could she die?
Through the wild wintry night
The crashing train rushed onwards, and I groaned
Between my teeth "On! on! we scarcely move."
And the white snow-shapes, peering thro' the gloom,
Took forms like ghosts that beckoned, beckoned on;
And the long shrieks and hissings and the clangings.
As we whirred on, were sobs and bitter wails
And hoarse strange voices crying "she may die!"
And then I moaned aloud "She cannot die!
I will not have her die!"
I find her dead!
Dead! oh my Amy dead!
Too late! too late!
I cannot kiss her pallid lips to life
For one last long farewell. Look the blue lids
Are sealed upon the eyes; they will not rise
For one last gaze to show she loved me still.
I did not close them. 'Twas not on my breast
Her dying head was rested in that anguish
The last life gave her--ah! it gave so many!
It gave? I gave! Oh but one little breath,
One moment of forgiveness, and I might
Kneel down and pray beside her patiently,
Kneel down and rise a less unworthy man.
Yes she is dead--but do you say I killed her?
Did you fold those thin hands upon her breast
That I might see how wasted they had grown?
Ah me! the ring sits loose on that shrunk finger.
If I might dare to take it from her now,
And wear it for a conscience, just to preach
The lessons my dulled conscience trips at!
No
I am not worthy. Let it go with her.
I will remember that in a lone grave
My wife is wearing still her wedding ring,
That I may know she is my own.
Ah! child,
Fresh from the meadows, lily-hearted child,
If only you had never been my own,
If I had left you in your lowliness,
I should have lost your glory on my life
But should have had this worst remorse the less,
And you would still be singing in your home.
Oh! what had I to do to drag you down
To my unworth, and fancy, braggart fool!
Because I shrieked my first in a tall room
Panelled with portraitures of better men
Than I who shame their race, and your mazed eyes
Were opened on a dingy white-washed wall,
That I could raise you--I, who was more far
Beneath you than I'd sunk from my first self.
Oh dreamer that I was! I took from you,
My little one, your simple happiness
And thought I could replace it from a heart
That only dreamed the thing it should have been.
And now you lie there, ghastly white and cold,
And the gold locks I used to tease droop down
By a thin cheek and round a wasted throat,
And you are dead.
Oh! if you could but hear!
They of the strange new faith the Swedish saint
Dreamed in his trances say that for three days
Death is not where it seems, and the stiff corpse
Might hear and understand the living still.
Oh! if it could but be! if you could hear
And know I ask forgiveness thus, oh thus
Weeping. No you smile on a changeless smile
Of bliss ineffable; you would not smile
If you could see me weep, hear my wild sorrow.
You lie there stony. I can never think
I gave you so much comfort at the last
As just to ask forgiveness. 'Tis too late;
You are gone from me. Oh! too late! too late!






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