Poems (Taylor)/Dead

by Rachel Annand Taylor

For works with similar titles, see Dead.

DEAD

I.

If I hearken at your grave   Will you speak?Will the sudden crimson wave   Tint your cheek?Will your pulse begin to beat,And your lip to quiver, sweet,With the dreamy silver phraseOf our dreamy lover-days,   If I speak?

II.

For your passion would embalm   (So you said)Lids and fingers carven calm,   Pale and dead. Like a sacred orange-flower,Pluckt one meditative hour,You would wait, a pensive bride,Till they brought me to your side,   —So you said.

III.

But I dare not hearken so,   Queen of Rest!Where the holy lilies grow   From your breast;—For the silences immureAll your reveries death-pure,While I sicken with the sinOf the world I wander in,   Soul at rest!

IV.

So I labour to forget    How the roadWins through petals blue and wet    Your abode;—How an agony supremeYet shall break your bridal dream,When they bear my body stainedTo your beauty unprofaned,   By that road.