Louise Bogan. To a Dead Lover. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

To a Dead Lover

By Louise Bogan


From “Beginning and End” THE DARK is thrown
Back from the brightness, like hair
Cast over a shoulder.
I am alone,
Four years older;	5
Like the chairs and the walls
Which I once watched brighten
With you beside me. I was to waken
Never like this, whatever came or was taken.

The stalk grows, the year beats on the wind.	10
Apples come, and the month for their fall.
The bark spreads, the roots tighten.
Though today be the last
Or tomorrow all,
You will not mind.	15

That I may not remember
Does not matter.
I shall not be with you again.
What we knew, even now
Must scatter	20
And be ruined, and blow
Like dust in the rain.

You have been dead a long season
And have less than desire
Who were lover with lover;	25
And I have life—that old reason
To wait for what comes,
To leave what is over.