In Time of Mourning

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

"Return," we dare not as we fain
  Would cry from hearts that yearn:
Love dares not bid our dead again
  Return.

  O hearts that strain and burn
As fires fast fettered burn and strain!
  Bow down, lie still, and learn.

The heart that healed all hearts of pain
  No funeral rites inurn:
Its echoes, while the stars remain,
  Return.

May 1885.


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