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SONNET: TO A CHILD by FRANCIS THOMPSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHENAS MY LIFE SHALL TIME WITH FUNERAL TREAD
Last Line: ONLY THE NAME OF HIM IT SEPULCHRES!

WHENAS my Life shall time with funeral tread
The heavy death-drum of the beaten hours,
Following, sole mourner, mine own manhood dead,
Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;
When I you love am no more I you love,
But go with unsubservient feet, behold
Your dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove; --
A new man, mocked with misname of old;
When shamed Love keeps his ruined lodging, elf!
When, ceremented in mouldering memory,
Myself is hearsed underneath myself,
And I am but the monument of me: --
O to that tomb be tender then, which bears
Only the name of him it sepulchres!



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