Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again though cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago!

Christina Rossetti (1830–94)

The Kaleidoscope

To climb these stairs again, bearing a tray,

Might be to find you pillowed with your books,

Your inventories listing gowns and frocks

As if preparing for a holiday.

Or, turning from the landing, I might find

My presence watched through your kaleidoscope,

A symmetry of husbands, each redesigned

In lovely forms of foresight, prayer and hope.

I climb these stairs a dozen times a day

And, by that open door, wait, looking in

At where you died. My hands become a tray

Offering me, my flesh, my soul, my skin.

Grief wrongs us so. I stand, and wait, and cry

For the absurd forgiveness, not knowing why.

Douglas Dunn (1942–)

Verses Written on Her Deathbed at Bath to Her Husband in London

Thou who dost all my worldly thoughts employ,

Thou pleasing source of all my earthly joy,

Thou tenderest husband and thou dearest friend,

To thee this first, this last adieu I send.

At length the conqueror Death asserts his right,

And will for ever veil me from thy sight.

He woos me to him with a cheerful grace,

And not one terror clouds his meagre face.

He promises a lasting rest from pain,

And shows that all life’s fleeting joys are vain.

Th’eternal scenes of Heaven he sets in view,

And tells me that no other joys are true.

But love, fond love, would yet resist his power,

Would fain awhile defer the parting hour.

He brings thy mourning image to mine eyes,

And would obstruct my journey to the skies.

But say, thou dearest, thou unwearied friend,

Say, shouldst thou grieve to see my sorrows end?

Thou knowst a painful pilgrimage I’ve pass’d,

And shouldst thou grieve that rest is come at last?

Rather rejoice to see me shake off life,

And die as I have lived, thy faithful wife.

Mary Monk (?1677–1715)

A Widow’s Hymn

How near me came the hand of Death,

When at my side he struck my dear,

And took away that precious breath

Which quicken’d my belovèd peer!

How helpless am I thereby made!

By day how grieved, by night how sad!

And now my life’s delight is gone,

– Alas! how am I left alone!

The voice which I did more esteem