Anna Wickham’s “Theft” describes a speaker alone with the body of an old man who had loved her. Instead of simply grieving, she touches his dead head as if she can take from him the knowledge of death—the “rigour and the cold.” She doesn’t ask forgiveness, because he once lived and wandered, and because he had loved her. Then she finds a book of verses he dropped on the day he died and repeats them to his dead ears instead of praying. She takes the book, ignoring the claims of his heirs.
The speaker’s feelings are complicated: sorrow mixed with boldness, intimacy, and a sense of entitlement. Her “theft” feels less like robbery than a way of holding onto him. The poem’s mood is quiet but unsettling—tender, defiant, and slightly eerie, as if love gives her permission to cross the usual boundaries around death.