RPO -- Louise Bogan : Epitaph for a Romantic Woman

Louise Bogan (1897-1970)

Epitaph for a Romantic Woman

1She has attained the permanence

2She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning.

3Untended stalks blow over her

4Even and swift, like young men running.

5Always in the heart she loved

6Others had lived, -- she heard their laughter.

7She lies where none has lain before,

8Where certainly none will follow after.

Notes

1] For unknown reasons (because the poem has an immediate appeal), Bogan did not include this poem in Blue Estuaries (1968), her final selection. Elizabeth Frank describes the omission as inexplicable (63).

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Louise Bogan, Body of this Death: Poems (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1923): 18. PS 3503 O195 B66 1923 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1923
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/16

Rhyme: abcb

Other poems by Louise Bogan