Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WHEN I WANDER WITH DEATH, by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WHEN I WANDER WITH DEATH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: This life is a fleeting breath
Last Line: Let me find love's long-lost day.
Alternate Author Name(s): Chandler, Ellen Louise
Subject(s): Future Life; Mortality; Retribution; Eternity; After Life


THIS Life is a fleeting breath,
And whither and how shall I go,
When I wander away with Death
By a path that I do not know?

Shall I find the throne of the Moon,
And kneel with her lovers there
To pray for a cold, sweet boon
From her beauty cold and fair?

Or shall I make haste to the Sun,
And warm at his passionate fire
My heart by sorrow undone,
And sick with a vain desire?

Shall I steal into Twilight-Land,
When the Sun and the Moon are low,
And hark to the furtive band
Of the winds that whispering go --

Telling and telling again,
And crooning with scornful mirth,
The secrets of women and men
They overheard on the earth?

Will the dead birds sing once more,
And the nightingale's note be sad
With the passion and longing of yore,
And the thrushes with joy go mad?

Nay, what though they carol again,
And the flowers spring to life at my feet,
Can they heal the sting of my pain,
Or quicken a dead heart's beat?

What care I for Moon, or for stars,
Or the Sun on his royal way?
Only somewhere, beyond Earth's bars,
Let me find Love's long-lost day.





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