Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOVE'S BELIEF by ANONYMOUS

First Line: I BELIEVE IF I SHOULD DIE
Last Line: WHEN LIFE FALLS FROM US LIKE A WITHERED HUSK
Subject(s): DEATH;LOVE; "DEAD, THE;"
I.

I BELIEVE if I should die,
And you should kiss my eyelids where I lie
Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,
The folded orbs would open at thy breath,
And, from its exile in the Isles of Death,
Life would come gladly back along my veins.

II.
I believe if I were dead,
And you upon my lifeless heart should tread, --
Not knowing what the poor clod chanced to be, --
It would find sudden pulse beneath the touch
Of him it ever loved in life so much,
And throb again, warm, tender, true to thee.

III.
I believe if in my grave,
Hidden in woody deeps all by the wave,
Your eyes should drop some warm tears of regret,
From every salty seed of your deep grief
Some fair, sweet blossom would leap into leaf,
To prove that death could not make my love forget.

IV.
I believe if I should fade
Into that realm where light is made,
And you should long once more my face to see,
I would come forth upon the hills of night
And gather stars like fagots, till thy sight,
Fed by the beacon-blaze, fell full on me.
I believe my love for thee
(Strong as my life) so nobly placed to be,
It could as soon expect to see the sun
Fall like a dead king from his heights sublime,
His glory stricken from the throne of time,
As thee unworthy the worship thou hast won.

V.
I believe who has not loved
Hath half the treasure of his life unproved,
Like one who, with the grape within his grasp,
Drops it, with all its crimson juice unpressed,
And all its luscious sweetness left unguessed,
Out of his careless and unheeding grasp.
I believe love, pure and true,
Is to the soul a sweet, immortal dew
That gems life's petals in the hour of dusk;
The waiting angels see and recognize
The rich crown-jewel love of Paradise,
When life falls from us like a withered husk.



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