WHEN Love is dead, what more but funeral rites, -- To lay his sweet corpse lovingly to rest, To cover him with rose and eglantine, And all fair posies that he loved the best? What more, but kisses for his close-shut eyes, His cold, still lips that never more will speak, -- His hair, too bright for dust of death to dim, The flush scarce faded from his frozen cheek? What more, but tears that will not warm his brow, Although they burn the eyes from whence they start? No bitter weeping or more bitter words Can rouse to one more throb that pulseless heart. So dead he is, who once was so alive! In summer, when the ardent days were long, He was as warm as June, as gay and glad As any bird that swelled its throat with song. So dead! yet all things were his ministers, -- All birds and blossoms, and the joyous June: Would they had died, and kept sweet Love alive! Since he is gone, the world is out of tune. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WAYS OF TIME by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES AGAINST IDLENESS AND MISCHIEF by ISAAC WATTS A DEDICATION by EDMUND JOHN ARMSTRONG VERSES FROM THE 'ANNALIA DUBRENSIA' by WILLIAM BASSE TO EMILY DICKINSON by MARY BOWEN BRAINERD MELANCHOLY by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES APPRECIATION by LIDA WILLIAMS BROCKER |