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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Love Lies Bleeding

Christina Rossetti

Love that is dead and buried, yesterday
  Out of his grave rose up before my face,
  No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,
  But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;
  Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days,
Caught echoes of all music passed away.
Was this indeed to meet?—I mind me yet
  In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
    We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
  I mind me how we parted then heart sick,
    Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive:—
Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems | Little, Brown, and Company, 1906
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