Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HERE LIES A LADY, by JOHN CROWE RANSOM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HERE LIES A LADY, by                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Here lies a lady of beauty and high degree
Last Line: After six little spaces of chill, and six of burning.
Subject(s): Death; Women; Dead, The


Here lies a lady of beauty and high degree,
Of chills and fever she perished, of fever and chills,
The delight of her husband, her aunts, her infant of three,
And of medicoes marveling sweetly on her ills.

For either she burned, and her confident eyes would blaze
And her fingers fly in a way to puzzle their heads --
What was she making? Why, nothing; she sat in a maze
Of old scraps of laces, snipped into curious shreds --

Or this would pass, and the light of the fire decline,
Till she lay discouraged and cold as a thin stalk white and blown,
And would not open her eyes, to kisses, to wine:
The sixth of these states was her last, the cold settled down.

Sweet ladies, long may ye bloom, and toughly I hope ye may thole,
But was she not lucky? In flowers and lace and mourning,
In love and great honor, we bade God rest her soul
After six little spaces of chill, and six of burning.





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