Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONG by WILLIAM ROSE BENET

Poet Analysis

First Line: HAD I A CLAIM TO FAME?
Last Line: "HE WAS HER LOVER!"
Subject(s): HOPE; LOVE AFFAIRS; MUSIC & MUSICIANS; SINGING & SINGERS; OPTIMISM; SONGS;

Had I a claim to fame?
Little to honor;
Save when I spoke her name,
Gazing upon her.
Then was I crowned of men,
More than my seeming.
Youth's glorious hope again
Bannered my dreaming.

So, when our day is past;
When we lie stilly
Under the earth at last,
Clod by white lily.
Give me neither tear nor sigh;
Breathe but this in passing by
Where empearled with morning dew
The high grass above her
Waves, and above me too,—
"He was her lover!"



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