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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DEAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When the clear red sun goes down
Last Line: To be nurtured by the dead.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


When the clear red sun goes down,
Passing in glory away,
And night is spreading her twilight frown
On the open brow of day;
When the faintest glimmering trace is gone,
And all of light is fled --
Then, then does memory, sad and lone,
Call back the dear ones dead.

When the harp's soul-touching chord
Is roughly frayed and torn;
When of all tones the string that poured
The fullest is outworn;
When it is heard to breathe and break,
Its latest magic shed;
Then, then will my warm heart bleed and ache,
And cherish the kind ones dead.

When the elm's rich leaf is seen
Losing its freshness fast,
And paleness steals on its vivid green,
As the autumn wind moans past;
When it eddies to the cold damp ground,
All crushed beneath the tread;
Then, then may the tear in my eye be found,
For I muse on the fair ones dead.

For, like that orb of light,
That chord, and shining leaf,
Forms were once near as rare and bright,
And oh! their stay as brief.
I watched them fading -- I saw them sink,
Light, beauty, sweetness fled;
And a type of their being bids me think
Too fondly of the dead.

The sun will rise again,
The string may be replaced,
The tree will bloom -- but the loved in the tomb
Leaves the world forever waste.
Let earth yield all the joys it may,
Still should I bow my head;
Still would my lonely breathing say,
Give, give me back the dead.

As the thickest verdure springs
From the ashes of decay;
And the living ivy closest clings
To the ruins cold and gray:
So my feelings most intense and deep
By the shrouded and lost are fed;
So my thoughts will yearn, and my spirit turn,
To be nurtured by the dead.





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