Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MY DEAD, by BAYARD TAYLOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MY DEAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Give back the soul of youth once more!
Last Line: I shall behold my dead again?
Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard
Subject(s): Death; Life; Past; Youth; Dead, The


GIVE back the soul of youth once more!
The years are fleeting fast away,
And this brown hair will soon be gray,
These cheeks be pale and furrowed o'er.

Ah, no, the child is long since dead,
Whose light feet spurred the laggard years,
Who breathed in future atmospheres,
Ere Youth's eternal Present fled.

Dead lies the boy, whose timid eye
Shunned every face that spake not love;
Whose simple vision looked above,
And saw a glory in the sky.

And now the youth has sighed his last,
I see him cold upon his bier,
But in these eyes there is no tear:
He joins his brethren of the Past.

'T was time he died: the gates of Art
Had shut him from the temple's shrine,
And now I climb her mount divine,
But with the sinews, not the heart.

How many more, O Life! shall I
In future offer up to thee?
And shall they perish utterly,
Upon whose graves I clomb so high?

Say, shall I not at last attain
Some height, from whence the Past is clear,
In whose immortal atmosphere
I shall behold my Dead again?





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