Amy Levy

Last Words

Dead! all’s done with!
-- R. Browning.


These blossoms that I bring,
This song that here I sing,
These tears that now I shed,
I give unto the dead.

There is no more to be done,
Nothing beneath the sun,
All the long ages through,
Nothing--by me for you.

The tale is told to the end;
This, ev’n, I may not know--
If we were friend and friend,
If we were foe and foe.

All’s done with utterly,
All’s done with. Death to me
Was ever Death indeed;
To me no kindly creed

Consolatory was given.
You were of earth, not Heaven. . .
This dreary day, things seem
Vain shadows in a dream,

Or some strange, pictured show;
And mine own tears that flow,
My hidden tears that fall,
The vainest of them all.