Classic and Contemporary Poetry
UNFINISHED, by GRACE BROWN PUTNAM Poet's Biography First Line: It seems to me I cannot die Last Line: With shining haste to reach my tomb. Subject(s): Death; Graves; Hearts; Love; Dead, The; Tombs; Tombstones | ||||||||
It seems to me I cannot die And being dead, Leave THIS unseen and THAT unsaid. On my low couch I still should know The ancient lure of Alpine snow; My frozen blood would swiftly rush To meet the morning's rosy flush Upon the mountains' piercing spires Where sunrise streams in leaping fires. The gay enchantment of the night Where Venice holds her mirror bright Would rend the curtains of that bed Where rests at last each weary head. The camel's tread my heart would shake And bid my slothful veins awake To meet the rapture deeply hid In palmy tree and pyramid. And then the songs I could not sing Elusive as the flashing wing Of birds that thread the summer through With fleeting glimpses of their hue. How can I leave to other lips The honeyed nectar of those sips At that intoxicating wine Which poets pour at nature's shrine? I think a lovely phrase would swim Upon my senses, dull and dim, And like a lily, golden gleam, Upon death's sullen, sluggish stream; Or else, perchance, some martial word Might pierce my calm, and like a sword Cut through the dark and curtained gloom With shining haste to reach my tomb. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE GRAVE OF MRS. HEMANS by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER THOSE GRAVES IN ROME by LARRY LEVIS NOT TO BE DWELLED ON by HEATHER MCHUGH ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON ETRUSCAN TOMB by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS ENDING WITH A LINE FROM LEAR by MARVIN BELL |
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