Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MONODY by HERMAN MELVILLE

Poet Analysis

First Line: TO HAVE KNOWN HIM, TO HAVE LOVED HIM
Last Line: THAT HID THE SHYEST GRAPE.
Subject(s): FRIENDSHIP; GRIEF; HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL (1804-1864); SORROW; SADNESS;

To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
And now for death to set his seal --
Ease me, a little ease, my song!
By wintry hills his hermit-mound
The sheeted snow-drifts drape,
And houseless there the snow-bird flits
Beneath the fir-trees' crape:
Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine
That hid the shyest grape.



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