Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AFTER RAIN by MARION ETHEL HAMILTON

First Line: I WENT OUT TO YOUR GRAVE, IN THE BLOWING WIND AFTER THE RAIN
Last Line: AS LOVELY AS THE INSECTS' EVENING HUM.

I went out to your grave, in the blowing wind after the rain;
The flowers of red I had set there, were torn and strewn around;
I was wild with thinking you sodden, frantic with pain;
Morbid, and almost insane, @3and I dug in the ground@1.

I dug in the ground, trying to reach some essence,
Some clod of earth, that touched you, in the dark;
Something to reassure me that your quintessence
Still leaped to me, some mote, some little spark.

Over your grave a wild, wet wind was blowing,
And spicy acorns had fallen from your tall tree;
And here, above, like the wind, Time's stream was flowing --
You, under the earth, were in timeless eternity.

What is this haunting consciousness of you I carry?
For you are closer dead! How can this be?
You are as close as breath is to the body;
You are as close as leaves are, to a tree.

Death knows a silence that is more than silence --
I hear your atoms throbbing like a drum!
There must be music, to this dissolution
As lovely as the insects' evening hum.



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