Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LOVE DEAD, by ELIZABETH OAKES PRINCE SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOVE DEAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This morn with trembling I awoke
Last Line: With but phantoms round me flitting!
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Seba (e. Oakes), Mrs.; Oakes-smith, Elizabeth
Subject(s): Love - Loss Of


THIS morn with trembling I awoke,
Just as the dawn my slumber broke:
Flapping came a heavy wing, sounding pinions o'er my head,
Beating down the blessed air with a weight of chilling dread --
Felt I then the presence of a doom
That an Evil occupied the room --
And I dared not round the bower,
Chilly in the grayish morning,
Dared not face the evil power,
With its voice of inward warning.

Vain with weakness we may palter --
Vainly may the fond heart falter,
Came there upon my soul, dropping down like leaden weight,
Burning pang or freezing pang, which I know not 't was so great;
Life hath its moments black unnumbered,
I knew not if mine eyes had slumbered,
Yet I little thought such pain
Ever to have known again --
Love dies, too, when Faith is dead,
Yesternight Faith perished.

I knew that Love could never change --
That Love should die seems yet more strange --
Lifting up the downy veil, screening Love within my heart,
Beating there as beat my pulse, moving like myself a part --
I had kept him cherished there so deep,
Heart-rocked kept him in his balmy sleep,
That till now I never knew
How his fibres round me grew --
Could not know how deep the sorrow
Where Hope bringeth no to-morrow.

I struggled, knowing we must part,
I grieved to lift him from my heart,
Grieving much and struggling much, forth I brought him sorrowing --
Drooping hung his fainting head -- all adown his dainty wing,
Shrieked I with a wild and dark surprise --
For I saw the marble in Love's eyes --
Yet I hoped his soul would wait
As he oft had waited there --
Hovering though at Heaven's gate --
Could he leave me to despair!

Unfolded they the crystal door,
Where Love shall languish never more --
Weeping Love thy days are o'er. Lo! I lay thee on thy bier
Wiping thus from thy dead cheek every vestige of a tear!
Love has perished -- hist, hist how they tell,
Beating pulse of mine, his funeral knell!
Love is dead, ay dead and gone,
Why should I be living on; --
Why be in this chamber sitting,
With but phantoms round me flitting!





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