Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO ONE WHO DIED LAST YEAR by ANNA EMILIA BAGSTAD

First Line: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED SINCE THEN? DO YOU KNOW ALL
Last Line: WISTFUL AT EVEN WITH A THOUGHT OF ME?
Subject(s): DEATH; MEMORY; DEAD, THE;

What have you learned since then? Do you know all
The mysteries you pondered once on earth?
The grey, unpatterned hit-and-miss of life,
Has it design and beauty? Do you smile,
As some young god, at our bewilderment?

Has youth returned to you?
Youth of the keen, light limb and zestful lung,
Youth blest with vast forgetfulness of scars,
And do you now, the bitterness unlearned,
Stand at the portal, an initiate
To halls where One more wise than Plato treads?

Ah, but the mansions there, do they resound
With human footfalls? Do you ever pause,
Wistful at even with a thought of me?



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