Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AUF WIEDERSEHEN, SELECTION by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Poet Analysis

First Line: IT WERE A DOUBLE GRIEF, IF THE TRUE-HEARTED
Last Line: UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN!
Subject(s): DEATH; IMMORTALITY; DEAD, THE;

It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,
Who loved us here, should on the farther shore
Remember us no more.
Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,
That death is a beginning, not an end,
We call to them, and send
Farewells, that better might be called predictions
Being foreshadowings of the future, thrown
Into the vast unknown.

Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,
And if by faith, as in old times was said,
Women received their dead
Raised up to life, then only for a season
Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain
Until we meet again!



Home: PoetryExplorer.net