Impressions: A Book of Verse/Love and Death

by Lilla Cabot Perry

 

LOVE AND DEATH

LOVE'S not Death's slave and fears not his undoing;
Life is of all Love's foes most pitiless,
And custom tarnishes what in the wooing
Seemed all the heart's desire of happiness.

Death is Love's friend, and sets a holy seal
On all the past that never can be broken.
Its beautifying touch knows to reveal
On lips long silent eloquence unspoken.