Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NAME FOR GRIEF by HELEN BRYANT

First Line: TELL ME ANY, ANY, TELL ME YOUR NAME FOR GRIEF
Last Line: OF A YOUNG GIRL SHAKES IN THE WITHERED CRONE.
Subject(s): GRIEF; LOVE - LOSS OF; NAMES; SORROW; SADNESS;
Tell me any, any, tell me your name for grief.
Hope's glittering arrow sped, bright cities fallen,
Love lost? Why, any of these hurts is brief.
Know you not the most pitiful and sullen?
Age, dreadful age, this of all ills is chief.

Comic we writhe while fast the noonday dims.
Bends the slim sceptre of the body's beauty.
Age mocks the eager pattern of our limbs,
Setting a rigid compass to our duty.
Our daring flickers to an old man's whims.

What could more cruel be, in any fashion?
Brain and flesh falter, and the heart alone
Burns on. The terrible unslackened passion
Of a young girl shakes in the withered crone.



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