“After Death”

Is this the couch where she lay yesternight

           With awed, majestic face and
fleeting breath

            And great sweet eyes that would not
shrink from Death?

Is this the pillow, soft with down and white,

On which her dear cheek lay, turned from the light,

            While all about her, bright and
golden-fair,

            Sank the rich tangles of her silken
hair?

Ah, God―if but for one brief time I might

Again press trembling lips upon her cheek. . .

            Her slim white throat. . . her whiter
brow. . . her hair. . .

            Her tender eyes wherein the
love-light shone!

But once―but once―to hear those sweet lips speak!

            I should be glad that she is free
from care―

            But oh, this first and awful night
alone!

“After Death” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).

 

 

A draft of “After Death,” courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham Washington. 

 

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