The Dead
The Dead
Original Text
Jones Very, Poems and Essays (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1888): 83. Internet Archive
1I see them, -- crowd on crowd they walk the earth,
2Dry leafless trees no autumn wind laid bare;
3And in their nakedness find cause for mirth,
4And all unclad would winter's rudeness dare;
5No sap doth through their clattering branches flow,
6Whence springing leaves and blossoms bright appear;
7Their hearts the living God have ceased to know
8Who gives the spring time to th'expectant year;
9They mimic life, as if from him to steal
10His glow of health to paint the livid cheek;
11They borrow words for thoughts they cannot feel,
12That with a seeming heart their tongue may speak;
13And in their show of life more dead they live
14Than those that to the earth with many tears they give.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2012
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