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. That moment of warmth and closeness refuses to fade. Instead, it tears at a heart—whether the dead lover’s or the speaker’s—and keeps the grief alive. The mood is hushed and intimate but also painful, like standing beside a grave while still feeling the person’s lips from a last evening together. The repetition of “Be all that you were not” suggests how unnatural death feels when someone was once full of life and love. In just a few lines, the poem turns a small remembered gesture into a wound that death cannot close.
The Kiss — Summary
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!