The speaker recounts a dream in which her dead brother appears beside a childhood stream. She warns him not to touch the red and white berries because they are poisonous, remembering how they called them “Dead Man’s Bread.” But he only laughs, and the dream turns strange and luminous. When she wakes, the sound of wind and dark water makes her loss feel immediate again. The poem ends by returning to the dream: her brother stands waiting, offering the berries with words that echo the Eucharist—“These are my body. Sister, take and eat.” It is a haunting mix of grief, tenderness, and uneasy comfort, as if death has transformed a childhood warning into a sacred, almost impossible invitation. The mood is dreamlike, eerie, and quietly heartbroken.
To L. H. B. (1894–1915) — Summary
Last night for the first time since you were dead I walked with you, my brother, in a dream. We were at home again beside the stream Fringed with tall berry bushes, white and red. “Don’t touch them: they are poisonous,” I said. But your hand hovered, and I saw a beam Of strange, bright laughter flying round your head And as you stooped I saw the berries gleam. “Don’t you remember? We called them Dead Man’s Bread!” I woke and heard the wind moan and the roar Of the dark water tumbling on the shore. Where--where is the path of my dream for my eager feet? By the remembered stream my brother stands Waiting for me with berries in his hands ... “These are my body. Sister, take and eat.”