On the Deathbed
On the Deathbed - meaning Summary
Love as Dangerous Journey
The speaker addresses a beloved while enduring consuming spiritual and erotic anguish. They alternate between pleading, resignation, and instruction: urging safety or ruthless departure, insisting that pain may have no cure except death, and describing love as a perilous, self-erasing journey. A dream figure beckons from the garden of love, framing the ordeal as both initiation and destiny. The poem ends with a practical aside about reading serious history rather than mediocre verse.
Read Complete AnalysesGo, rest your head on a pillow, leave me alone; leave me ruined, exhausted from the journey of this night, writhing in a wave of passion till the dawn. Either stay and be forgiving, or, if you like, be cruel and leave. Flee from me, away from trouble; take the path of safety, far from this danger. We have crept into this corner of grief, turning the water wheel with a flow of tears. While a tyrant with a heart of flint slays, and no one says, “Prepare to pay the blood money.” Faith in the king comes easily in lovely times, but be faithful now and endure, pale lover. No cure exists for this pain but to die, So why should I say, “Cure this pain”? In a dream last night I saw an ancient one in the garden of love, beckoning with his hand, saying, “Come here.” On this path, Love is the emerald, the beautiful green that wards off dragonsnough, I am losing myself. If you are a man of learning, read something classic, a history of the human struggle and don’t settle for mediocre verse.
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