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Home  »  The Little Book of Modern Verse  »  “When I Am Dead and Sister to the Dust”

Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917.

Elsa Barker

“When I Am Dead and Sister to the Dust”

WHEN I am dead and sister to the dust;

When no more avidly I drink the wine

Of human love; when the pale Proserpine

Has covered me with poppies, and cold rust

Has cut my lyre-strings, and the sun has thrust

Me underground to nourish the world-vine,—

Men shall discover these old songs of mine,

And say: This woman lived—as poets must!

This woman lived and wore life as a sword

To conquer wisdom; this dead woman read

In the sealed Book of Love and underscored

The meanings. Then the sails of faith she spread,

And faring out for regions unexplored,

Went singing down the River of the Dead.