Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/328



is not dead—oh! do not say she's dead. Good friends, she lives! what though the rose hath fled From her sweet face, doth not the lily there As beautiful a form and 'semblance bear? Good friends, I say she lives! her beauty lives! And death destroys all loveliness of hue; And were she dead, that lustre life but gives, From her, methinks, would have evanished too.

Good friends, join with me—do but give me space To feast upon the beauties of this face. She lives in death, she triumphs in the tomb, And, like a grave's flower, springs in fresher bloom The nearer it is planted to the dead! Raise, raise a little more her drooping head; Her bosom heaves not—'tis, like marble, white, And, like it, cold. But mark how exquisite And finely fashioned is this pale stiff arm Which sleeps upon it; touch it, it will not harm.