Viva! Anima Carissima by Marie Van Vorst

Name: Viva! Anima Carissima
Author: Marie Van Vorst

“Viva! Anima Carissima” is a sequence of elegiac love poems spoken by one who mourns a beloved taken by Death. The speaker imagines that unceasing verse, written from dawn through night and renewed in dreams, might restore the beloved to life; youth, love, and poetry would even plead with Jove for Fame if such art could preserve her. The beloved appears in a vision at the glowing horizon, luminous and aureoled, carrying a red Rose—the sign of earthly love. Her approach briefly transforms the speaker’s grief into hope of bliss beyond the Veil. Rejecting a state in which lovers’ hearts are held apart, the speaker treasures the imagined rose as if every crimson leaf retained the warmth of the beloved’s kiss. The poem then measures love’s former fullness against bereavement. If Fate had offered all the kingdom-like riches of possessing the beloved only to remove her afterward, the speaker says he would rather never have known her, despite the loss of love and heaven, than endure memory and desolation. Yet he still hopes that Spring may follow Winter if Fate can erase the beloved from memory. Finally, the speaker recalls a time when the lovers watched the Calendar pass through perpetual Spring, joined hand in hand while he made songs whose burden was his love for her. Their touch and kisses were figured as May and July, full of life and heat. In the present, however, he sits alone under Death’s command, with only storm-ghosts, ashes, and a cold winter hearth answering the memory of their shared joy.

By Marie Van Vorst · First published 1917 · Genre: Elegiac Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry · 728 words

First lines

I. Hail, Dearest! could verse make you live again / I'd rise with pallid-circled dawn to write / Until the veiled, the jealous hand of night / (Like Death that snatched you from the world of men) / Cloud up my thought and tracery of my pen. / Then would I burn the gentle candle-light / Till, fading spectre, sank each tall mast white / And cold stars lent their brilliant lanterns. Then / Should slumber only hold me till a dream / Brought new enraptured rhythm -- new song to give / Through vision of your soul's transcendent flame. / Youth, life, and love, should harness to the theme / Draw to Olympus -- pleading Jove for Fame. / Oh Dearest, if my verse could make you live!

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Viva! Anima Carissima is listed on Textopian as a poem by Marie Van Vorst, dated 1917 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: Marie Van Vorst
Date: 1917 CE
Language: English
Genres: Elegiac Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Memorial Poetry, Grief Poetry
Length: 728 words
Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Genres

Elegiac Poetry — The poems mourn a beloved person's death, dwelling on bereavement, memory, longing, and the hope that verse may preserve the lost beloved.
Lyric Poetry — Written in intimate first-person utterance, the work emphasizes intense personal feeling, musical language, imagery, and direct emotional address rather than narrative action.
Love Poetry — The central subject is enduring romantic devotion, expressed through recollections of physical closeness, kisses, shared happiness, and idealized affection.
Memorial Poetry — The speaker uses poetry as an act of commemoration, repeatedly addressing the deceased beloved and seeking to keep that person spiritually alive through art.