Love Is Strong Is Death: Poem 67

I have lived many lives. Now one is ended,
And time cannot turn back upon its track.
I think my sorrow never will be mended
But sorrowing and wishing will not bring her back.

Deep in my heart I feel that she will never
Be far from me, love cannot lose its own;
But now I wave farewell across forever
And turn and look forward toward life
where I must walk alone.

Time takes too long to travel empty-hearted,
And where my road may wind I do not know;
The journey is uncertain and uncharted.
Now I will grieve no longer—it is time to go.

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                Love's Rose

Love has less substance than a lover's breath
Heaved in a sigh and spun into a song,
And yet it has a power to outlast death;
Heaven and earth will not endure as long.
After the fiery twilight of the gods,
When all our demons and our deities
Perish together and cast down their rods
And crowns, love will rise weeping from its knees
And raise a world beyond the reach of doom,
That will survive even our unbelief,
That will not wither with the withering bloom
Of time or fade with life's last-fading leaf,
But like a delicate and deathless rose
Will blossom and burn red in winter snows.

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