Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LOST LILIES, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOST LILIES, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Show you her picture? Here it lies!
Last Line: In the resurrection of life shall wake.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


SHOW you her picture? Here it lies!
Hands of lilies, and lily-like brow;
Mouth that is bright as a rose, and eyes
That are just the soul's sweetest overflow.

Darling shoulders, softly pale,
Borne by the undulating play
Of the life below, up out of their veil,
Like lilies out o' the waves o' the May.

Throat as white as the throat of a swan,
And all as proudly graceful held;
Fair, bare bosom, "clothed upon
With chastity," like the lady of eld.

Tender lids, that drooping down,
Chide your glances overbold;
Fair, with a golden gleam in the brown,
And brown again in the gleamy gold.

These on your eyes like a splendor fall,
And you marvel not at my love, I see;
But it was not one, and it was not all,
That made her the angel she was to me.

So shut the picture and put it away,
Your fancy is only thus misled;
What can the dull, cold semblance say,
When the spirit and life of the life is fled?

Seven long years, and seven again,
And three to the seven -- a weary space --
The weary fingers of the rain
Have drawn the daisies over her face.

Seven and seven years, and three,
The leaves have faded to death in the frost,
Since the shadow that made for me
The world a shadow my pathway crossed.

And now and then some meteor gleam
Has broken the gloom of my life apart,
Or the only thread of some reveled dream
Has slid like sunshine in my heart.

But never a planet, steady and still,
And never a rainbow, brave and fine,
And never the flowery head of a hill
Has made the cloud of my life to shine.

Yet God is love! and this I trust,
Though summer is over and sweetness done,
That all my lilies are safe, in the dust,
As they were in the glow of the great, glad sun.

Yea, God is love, and love is might!
Mighty as surely to keep as to make;
And the sleepers, sleeping in death's dark night,
In the resurrection of life shall wake.





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