Marjorie Allen Seiffert. Epitaphs. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Epitaphs

By Marjorie Allen Seiffert


I HERE lies a lady
Who smothered before she died—
Crushing every impulse of her soul
For prudence sake.
Only her body lived	5
To be buried.

II Sacred to the memory
Of a genius who lied
From necessity, from pleasure, and from habit.
If this be his soul, this sturdy shade,	10
Perverse but virile even in death,
He will deny it.

III Here sleeps
Earth’s hungry child.

IV Beautiful lady,	15
Even death is your courtly lover,
Bearing you in his arms to infinity
With tenderness.

V Here lies a man
Who wasted in a hundred places	20
A bit of his soul.
Yet even now it has a certain life,
Like the vague sighing
Of a multitude of insects
Dancing in the twilight.	25

VI Her spirit, a shining blade
Piercing her breast,
Pierced even the veil of death.
And we who knew her know
It never can lie sheathed	30
In eternal mist.

VII A man lies here
Who took sport seriously,
Forgetting life.
His soul, like a lost ball,	35
Lies happy as a field mouse,
Or a cricket,
In the long grass.

VIII Here lies one
Whose glowing faith,	40
Shouting hosannas through the dark,
Shall see its God
Even as the sprouting grain
The sun.