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Elizabeth Siddall (1829-1862)

Dead Love


              1Oh never weep for love that's dead
              2    Since love is seldom true
              3But changes his fashion from blue to red,
              4    From brightest red to blue,
              5And love was born to an early death
              6    And is so seldom true.

              7Then harbour no smile on your bonny face
              8    To win the deepest sigh.
              9The fairest words on truest lips
            10    Pass on and surely die,
            11And you will stand alone, my dear,
            12    When wintry winds draw nigh.

            13Sweet, never weep for what cannot be,
            14    For this God has not given.
            15If the merest dream of love were true
            16    Then, sweet, we should be in heaven,
            17And this is only earth, my dear,
            18    Where true love is not given.

Notes

7] bonny: "loving" (1899).

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: Poems and Drawings of Elizabeth Siddal, ed. Roger C. Lewis and Mark Samuels Lasner (Wolfville, N.S.: Wombat Press, 1978): 10. B-11 5641 Fisher Rare Books Library
First publication date: 1899
Publication date note: Ruskin: Rossetti: Preraphaelitism: Papers 1854 to 1862, ed. William Michael Rossetti (London: George Allen, 1899): 151-52.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2001
Recent editing: 1:2002/10/5

Composition date: 1859
Composition date note: March-fall 1859 (Lewis and Lasner, xi, 23)
Rhyme: abcbdb (mainly)

Other poems by Elizabeth Siddall

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