Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE SEQUEL TO 'A REMINISCENCE' by AMY LEVY

First Line: NOT IN THE STREET AND NOT IN THE SQUARE
Last Line: THEN, AND THEN ONLY, MY SPIRIT KNEW.

NOT in the street and not in the square,
The street and square where you went and came ;
With shuttered casement your house stands bare,
Men hush their voice when they speak your name.

I, too, can play at the vain pretence,
Can feign you dead ; while a voice sounds clear
In the inmost depths of my heart : Go hence,
Go, find your friend who is far from here.

Not here, but somewhere where I can reach !
Can a man with motion, hearing and sight,
And a thought that answered my thought and speech,
Be utterly lost and vanished quite ?

Whose hand was warm in my hand last week ? . . .
My heart beat fast as I neared the gate --
Was it this I had come to seek,
"A stone that stared with your name and date ;"

A hideous, turfless, fresh-made mound ;
A silence more cold than the wind that blew ?
What had I lost, and what had I found ?
My flowers that mocked me fell to the ground --
Then, and then only, my spirit knew.






Home: PoetryExplorer.net