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IN TIME OF MOURNING

Algernon Charles Swinburne

"Return," we dare not as we fain

Would cry from hearts that yearn:

Love dares not bid our dead again

Return.

 

O hearts that strain and burn

As fires fast fettered burn and strain!

Bow down, lie still, and learn.

 

The heart that healed all hearts of pain

No funeral rites inurn:

Its echoes, while the stars remain,

Return.

 

_May 1885._