A Life-Tomb
Arthur O'Shaughnessy
1844 to 1881
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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With Her touch behind panel and door
And a shade of lips to pout
The house is haunted and rife
Am I here alive in her tomb?—
To sit with dull eyes cast
At some dream-sight of her;
—Till tones, that seem to start
Ah fain am I still to track
All the purple nights and days
With some remnant of her sighs.
Lives a moment and then dies.
And often too, in the night,
Move round about the heart,
From the shadows in the room,
And her footfalls under the floor;
—Is She here dead in my life?
And her soul seems to look out
She slew passing; or, half sweet,
O the house is filled with gloom:
As from dim and distant eyes,
And to walk along the ways
And a love-glow fills the gloom;
And to gather, following back,
Re-kindles an old delight
The flame in famished eyes
Right fair in the heart's past,
On slowly dying embers
Sown with flowers by her feet;
The heart with tremulous stir
Of things the heart remembers