Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Lyrics (1891). I. The Dead Friend

A. Mary F. Robinson-Darmesteter (1857–1944)

WHEN you were alive, at least,

There were days I never met you.

In the study, at the feast,

By the hearth, I could forget you.

Moods there were of many days

When, methinks, I did not mind you.

Now, oh now, in any place

Wheresoe’er I go, I find you!

You … but how profoundly changed,

O you dear-belov’d dead woman!

Made mysterious and estranged,

All-pervading, superhuman.

Ah! to meet you as of yore,

Kind, alert, and quick to laughter:

You, the friend I loved Before;

Not this tragic friend of After.