Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEAD LOVE, by PHOEBE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEAD LOVE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: We are face to face, and between us here
Last Line: Aye, up till the death-blind eyes are hid!
Subject(s): Death; Love; Dead, The


WE are face to face, and between us here
Is the love we thought could never die;
Why has it only lived a year?
Who has murdered it -- you or I?

No matter who -- the deed was done
By one or both, and there it lies;
The smile from the lip forever gone,
And darkness over the beautiful eyes.

Our love is dead, and our hope is wrecked;
So what does it profit to talk and rave,
Whether it perished by my neglect,
Or whether your cruelty dug its grave!

Why should you say that I am to blame,
Or why should I charge the sin on you?
Our work is before us all the same,
And the guilt of it lies between us two.

We have praised our love for its beauty and grace;
Now we stand here, and hardly dare
To turn the face-cloth back from the face,
And see the thing that is hidden there.

Yet look! ah, that heart has beat its last,
And the beautiful life of our life is o'er,
And when we have buried and left the past,
We two, together, can walk no more.

You might stretch yourself on the dead, and weep,
And pray as the Prophet prayed, in pain;
But not like him could you break the sleep,
And bring the soul to the clay again.

Its head in my bosom I can lay,
And shower my woe there, kiss on kiss,
But there never was resurrection-day
In the world for a love so dead as this

And, since we cannot lessen the sin
By mourning over the deed we did,
Let us draw the winding-sheet up to the chin,
Aye, up till the death-blind eyes are hid!





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