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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNET: 1, 23 by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN

First Line: SHALL I NOT SEE HER? YES: FOR ONE HAS SEEN
Last Line: TO GRIEF OR FEAR, NOR LIES IN SLUMBER DULL.

Shall I not see her? yes: for one has seen
Her in her beauty since we called her dead,
One like herself, a fair young mother led
By her own lot to feel compassion keen;
And unto her last night my Anna came
And sat within her arms and spoke her name
While the old smile, she said, like starlight gleamed,
And like herself in fair young bloom, she said,
Only the white more white, the red more red,
And fainter than the mist her pressure seemed.
And words there were, though vague yet beautiful,
Which she who heard them could not tell to me;
It is enough: my Anna did not flee
To grief or fear, nor lies in slumber dull.



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