I wonder if the singer of this song, Rousing the spectres of dead bliss In pallid throng -- I see them! Tripping, tripping along, Like midnight ghosts about their church-yard wall -- I wonder if she knew of what she sang, Of lover's clasp or kiss, Or love at all? Perhaps she knew the truer things Of dreams, From which her heart need never wake To burn or break; Perhaps her words Were swift, unbridled birds Whose wings, Exempt of shifting path of cloud, Indifferent to star's directing cry, Lifted her high, Into the lover's arms of her imaginings. There could she sing indeed From out the conquered skies, Of love and lovers' need, And of her lover too, In spendthrift praise; Sing of the world within his eyes, And of his hands' soft ways, And of his lips -- and of her own -- Sing happily, alone, Through lovers' nights and days. Singer, sing on! Love dies . . . but not the song, As long As lips shall curve and meet: Hearts crumble . . . not their beat. Birds break of trilling, Drop from out the sky And die . . . But not their tunes; June does not weep her roses For dead Junes. Surely from all this death Life catches fuller breath! Love dies, The song lives on: Then let me live within the song! Scatter and spill The clamor of my wrong Out of wide skies, Shrouded and shriven in a lark's leaping trill . . . I who have looked too long Within a ghost's dear eyes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VOLUNTARIES by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW COURAGE THAT OVERCOMES by MARGARETE ROSE AKIN VILLANELLE: AU RETOUR DU PRINTEMPS by PHILIP SCHUYLER ALLEN SEASONS AND TIMES by WILLIAM BARNES |