THINK you the dead are lonely in that place? They are companioned by the leaves and grass, By many a beautiful and vanished face, By all the strange and lovely things that pass. Sunsets and dawnings and the starry vast, The swinging moon, the tracery of trees -- These they shall know more perfectly at last, They shall be intimate with such as these. 'T is only for the living Beauty dies, Fades and drifts from us with too brief a grace, Beyond the changing tapestry of skies Where dwells her perfect and immortal face. For us the passage brief; -- the happy dead Are ever by great beauty visited. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FREDERICKSBURG by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG [JULY 3, 1863] by WILL HENRY THOMPSON IN STATE by BYRON FORCEYTHE WILLSON SONNET: ENGLAND by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH BOUGHT WITH A PRICE by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON AT THE LAST by RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE |