The Kiss
Heap slumber on your eyes; Stop your mouth with dust Be all that you were not, As dead folk must.
Be all that you were not, Unmindful, cold, apart— The kiss you gave that dusk Tears at your heart!
Lizette Woodworth Reese
Heap slumber on your eyes; Stop your mouth with dust Be all that you were not, As dead folk must.
Be all that you were not, Unmindful, cold, apart— The kiss you gave that dusk Tears at your heart!
The speaker is talking to someone who has died, telling them to sleep, be silent, and become cold and distant, as the dead must. There is a firmness in these commands, as if the speaker is trying to make the loss feel final. But the poem turns on the memory of a kiss given at dusk.
Les hele sammendraget