Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PERFECT UNION, by MATHILDE BLIND Poet's Biography First Line: Draw back the curtain, wife' he said Last Line: "there he shall live while I have life." Alternate Author Name(s): Lake, Claude Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives | ||||||||
(W.K.C. -- 3rd MARCH, 1879) "A free man thinks of nothing so little as of death; and his wisdom is a meditation, not of death, but of life." -- Spinoza.) "DRAW back the curtain, wife," he said; And, dying, raised his feeble head, As all his gathered soul leaped sheer Into his waning eyes, and yearned After the journeying sun which turned Towards that other hemisphere. Then, as its incandescent bulk Sank slowly, like the foundering hulk Of some lone burning ship at sea, His life set with it -- bright as brief -- In that invincible belief Of Man's august supremacy. Truth's vanward hero! Calmly brave Fronting the dumb unfathomed grave With unintimidated eyes; Though not for him, beyond its night, Resuscitated Hope alight Prescient, on peaks of Paradise. And like some solemn parting word From one beloved friend on board Bound for some undiscovered shore, To one who stands with straining gaze To catch the last look of a face Which he may see, ah never more -- So, ere he drifted to the deep Unknowable, the utter sleep, Out, out beyond life's harbour bar, He whispered, "Perfect! no one knows How perfect!" and his eyes did close Even like a sun-extinguished star. His eyes did close: I held his hand: I loved, so came to understand The inmost working of his mind; Yea, in that clasp, I know not how, Did not his life of life then flow Through mine, while mine was left behind? I know not how, and yet it seems As in some prank of shifting dreams, That it was I who died, not he: And then again, I know not how, I feel new powers upheave and glow, And all his life that stirs in me. I am no longer what I was; My nature is the pictured glass, Where he who lived lives on and on; All ye who loved him, ye may see His spirits still investing me, As moonlight but reflects the sun. For ever deepening grows his sway: A voice cries in me night and day: "He'll never die to me, his wife; In our strong love death hath no part; I hold and fold him in my heart -- There he shall live while I have life." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BLESSING FOR A WEDDING by JANE HIRSHFIELD A SUITE FOR MARRIAGE by DAVID IGNATOW ADVICE TO HER SON ON MARRIAGE by MARY BARBER THE RABBI'S SON-IN-LAW by SABINE BARING-GOULD KISSING AGAIN by DORIANNE LAUX A TIME PAST by DENISE LEVERTOV |
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