The speaker remembers a moment from youth when he kissed a dead man’s forehead. Thirty years later, that kiss still feels present: it has lain in the dust with the body, but it also put a small light at the doorway of death. The title, “Scintilla,” means a spark, and that idea shapes the whole poem—the kiss was a tiny point of warmth or reverence against the darkness of dying. The mood is hushed, solemn, and a little uncanny. The speaker doesn’t explain who the dead man was or why he kissed him, and that silence makes the memory feel both intimate and strange. It is less a poem of grief than of wonder at how one small gesture can linger for decades.
Scintilla — Summary
I kissed a kiss in youth Upon a dead man’s brow; And that was long ago,-- And I’m a grown man now.
It’s lain there in the dust, Thirty years and more;-- My lips that set a light At a dead man’s door.