Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WITH ETERNITY STANDING BY, by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: How shall I bid you good-bye Last Line: With eternity standing by. Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Future Life; Love; Memory; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens; Retribution; Eternity; After Life | ||||||||
HOW shall I bid you good-bye, Dear, without tears? Only once in the years, The idle vanishing years, We met, with Eternity standing by, And loved, a little forgotten space, I for the sake of your beautiful face, You I hardly know how or why, Or whether you loved me indeed, alas, With Eternity standing by. We played our comedy parts, Scene after scene. You were to be my queen, My dear sweet comedy queen, I your lover and knave of hearts Who kissed your hand in the make-believe And looked for the bee in your royal sleeve, And stopped, because of the pain that smarts, The pangs that soften, the sighs that grieve, And the rest of the tragic parts. We did not know that we loved, Not at the first of it. That, ah that was the worst of it, The aching sorrowful worst of it, Not till I saw that your soul was moved At the sound of my voice, as in tears I read Of Guinevere and the days long dead, And the knights and ladies who lived and loved And went to their graves and were harvested. Then, ah then, it was proved. So I dare not bid you good-bye, Dear, without tears. Things there are in the years, The coming ominous years, All too sad for us not to cry. Other joys shall forgotten be, But not the pilgrimage made with me, The Severn's flood and the angry sky, And the love we talked of, which could not be With Eternity standing by. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IKON: THE HARROWING OF HELL by DENISE LEVERTOV LEEK STREET by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR UNABLE TO FIND by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS 3 by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS: 1 by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS: 2 by HAYDEN CARRUTH WRITING IN THE AFTERLIFE by BILLY COLLINS ESTHER; A YOUNG MAN'S TRAGEDY: 50 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT ESTHER; A YOUNG MAN'S TRAGEDY: 51 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 110. THE OASIS OF SIDI KHALED by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |
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