Resurrection by Sheila Kaye-Smith
A grieving woman keeps vigil beside her lover's grave, watching and weeping in fear that he might wake from death. She dreads the resurrection of the dead as a hard law she cannot escape, and begs that no third day's dawn should bring divine life back to him. She reflects that his life was rough, battered by whirlwind and wave, and that his grave was a mercy, a quiet place of rest in the earth's consoling breast. She insists he is desperate for sleep and would never choose to wake, and she trembles lest light should break into the merciful dark and torment his heavy eyes. Though she knows Christ rose on the third day and fears it is God's word that the crucified shall reign, she prays humbly that her love may sleep forever instead. She reasons that he was never a king or one who sat upon a throne, but only a trodden, stumbling thing in the dark, and asks whether eternal bliss is even wanted for one so tired. She concludes that life and resurrection belong to the gods, the great, and the strong, while slaves would rather slumber long, and she pleads that no angel from above wake her sleeping slave, her love. The poem closes as it began, with her watching and weeping by the grave, dreading the resurrection of the dead.
By Sheila Kaye-Smith · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry, Elegy · 452 words
First lines
By the grave I watch and weep, / Watch and weep in anxious pain, / Watch my Love's exhausted sleep, / Weep lest he should wake again -- / With heart and mind and soul I dread / The resurrection of the dead.
Is it a hard law of Thine / That no third day's dawn shall break / Without bringing life divine / To the dead? O for the sake / Of all Thy thorns and lilies won, / Let my weary one sleep on!
What this Textopian page supports
Resurrection is listed on Textopian as a poem by Sheila Kaye-Smith, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry, Elegy, Metaphysical Poetry, Dramatic Monologue
- Length: 452 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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- Work identity for Resurrection by Sheila Kaye-Smith
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a lyric poem expressing intimate personal emotion and meditation on death through first-person voice, focusing on the speaker's internal experience and emotional state.
- Religious Poetry — Engages directly with Christian theology, particularly the doctrine of resurrection and Christ's resurrection on the third day, as the central philosophical and spiritual concern.
- Elegy — Functions as a lament for the dead, with the speaker mourning at the grave and expressing sorrow, establishing the elegiac tone of grief and lamentation throughout.
- Metaphysical Poetry — Explores abstract philosophical questions concerning death, the afterlife, divine will, and the nature of eternal rest as responses to suffering and exhaustion.
Tags
grief · mourning · death · love · elegy · resurrection · grave · vigil · weeping · prayer · Christian theology · sleep