Les Morts Vont Vite

Les morts vont vite! Ay, for a little space We miss and mourn them fallen from their place; To take our portion in their rest are fain; But by-and-by, having wept, press on again, Perchance to win their laurels in the race. What man would find the old in the new love’s face? Seek on the fresher lips the old kisses’ trace? For withered roses newer blooms disdain? Les morts vont vite! But when disease brings thee in piteous case, Thou shalt thy dead recall, and thy ill grace To them for whom remembrance plead in vain. Then, shuddering, think, while thy bedfellow Pain Clasps thee with arms that cling like Death’s embrace: Les morts vont vite!

Collection: 

More from Poet

  • I take my chaperon to the play— She thinks she ’s taking me. And the gilded youth who owns the box, A proud young man is he; But how would his young heart be hurt If he could only know That not for his sweet sake I go Nor yet to see the trifling show; But to see my chaperon...

  • Wind of the City Streets, Impatient to be free, In this dull time of heats My love takes wings to flee: Leave thou this idle Town And hunt Her down. Wherever She may stay, By Sea or Mountain-side, Make thou thy airy Way, If there She bide; If sea-spray kiss...

  • She might have known it in the earlier Spring,— That all my heart with vague desire was stirred; And, ere the Summer winds had taken wing, I told her; but she smiled and said no word. The Autumn’s eager hand his red gold grasped, And she was silent; till from skies grown drear Fell soft...

  • This is a breath of summer wind That comes—we know not how—that goes As softly,—leaving us behind, Pleased with a smell of vine and rose. Poet, shall this be all thy word? Blow on us with a bolder breeze, Until we rise, as having heard The sob, the song of far-off seas. Blow in thy shell...

  • Haro! haro! Judge now betwixt this woman and me, Haro She leaves me bond, who found me free. Of love and hope she hath drained me dry— Yea, barren as a drought-struck sky; She hath not left me tears for weeping, Nor will my eyelids close in sleeping. I have gathered all my life’s-blood...