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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ON ONE DEAD, by ALFRED DE MUSSET Poet's Biography First Line: She might be lovely, if the night Last Line: From which no single word she read. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The | |||
SHE might be lovely, if the night, Carved in some chapel's dark recess By Buonarotti's chilling might, May claim the praise of loveliness. Good was she, if it goodness reach To give an alms in passing by Without one feeling, look, or speech-- If loveless gold be charity. And she could think, if that you deem In soft and modulated tone To babble like a ceaseless stream Is proof of thought--else had she none. She used to pray, if two fine eyes, Now coldly fastened on the ground, Now raised as coldly to the skies, Worthy the name of prayer be found. She would have smiled, if blighted flower That ne'er expanded to the sky Could open to the genial power Of winds that pass it heedless by. She might have wept, if when there lay Her hand on what she called her heart, She e'er had felt that human clay Softened by dews the heavens impart. She might have loved, but selfish pride, Like lamps a useless light that hold, Standing the coffined dead beside, Guarded her heart, so poor and cold. She's dead; she never lived, she stopt At seeming, seemed to live, though dead. The volume from her hand has dropt, From which no single word she read. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND A DEAD WOMAN by ALFRED DE MUSSET |
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