Realization
Realization - meaning Summary
Denial Yields to Grief
The speaker moves from skeptical denial to painful acceptance after the death of a beloved. At first she dismisses reports and even the sight of a coffin as unreal, clinging to the person’s lively image. A final visit to their customary meeting place at moonrise, when the loved one fails to appear, forces the speaker to recognize the permanent absence. The poem tracks a small, intense progression through grief.
Read Complete AnalysesI smiled with skeptic mocking where they told me you were dead, You of the airy laughter and lightly twinkling feet; "They tell a dream that haunted a chill gray dawn," I said, "Death could not touch or claim a thing so vivid and so sweet!" I looked upon you coffined amid your virgin flowers, But even that white silence could bring me no belief: "She lies in maiden sleep," I said. "and in the youngling hours Her sealed dark eyes will open to scorn our foolish grief." But when I went at moonrise to our ancient trysting place. . . . . And, oh, the wind was keening in the fir-boughs overhead! . . . . And you came never to me with your little gypsy face, Your lips and hands of welcome, I knew that you were dead!
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