Classic and Contemporary Poetry

E.W.D., by FRANCES CROFTS DARWIN CORNFORD Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: The sudden knowledge that you are not there
Last Line: Of the old pain.
Subject(s): Absence; Separation; Isolation

THE sudden knowledge that you are not there,
That I live on alone,
Seems still too vast and desolate to bear,
My dear, my own.

The merciful slow years, that rend and rob,
But yet restore again,
Are shattered suddenly by one great throb
Of the old pain.