Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MORTMAIN, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MORTMAIN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Grey and ghostly cypresses
Last Line: She had a lovely face.
Subject(s): Death; Faces; Lips; Sin; Trees; Dead, The


Grey and ghostly cypresses
Meet above our bed.
That is surely why she presses
Close to me her head.

Dead are we. Be quite at rest!
There can be no harm
If across what was her breast
I should lay my arm.

She was never very brave,
And these damned trees
A most evil whisper have
In the midnight breeze.

Close she clings with body thin;
She was always slender;
Do you hold it a deep sin,
Buried, to be tender?

She is frightened, she would say,
But her lips have gone --
Curse you! Look the other way.
Read our burial-stone!

What? She brought me to this pass?
Brought me to this place?
Oh, it may be! Turn the glass.
She had a lovely face.





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