Father! when I have passed, with deathly swoon, Into the ghost-world, immaterial, dim, O may nor time nor circumstance dislimn My image from thy memory, as noon Steals from the fainting bloom the cooling dew! Like flower, itself completing bud and bell, In lonely thicket, be thy sorrow true, And in expression secret. Worse than hell To see the grave hypocrisy, -- to hear The crocodilian sighs of summer friends Outraging grief's assuasive, holy ends! But thou art faithful, father, and sincere; And in thy brain the love of me shall dwell Like the memorial music in the curved sea-shell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A NEGRO LOVE SONG by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR BLACK SAMSON OF BRANDYWINE by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR STEVENSON'S BIRTHDAY by KATHERINE WISE MILLER SONNET: 3 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE IN LAMPLIGHT by MARTIN DONISTHORPE ARMSTRONG EPITAPH ON TWO YOUNG MEN NAMED LEITCH IN CROSSING THE RIVER SOUTHESK by JAMES BEATTIE |