Though I have watched so many mourners weep
O’er the real dead, in dull earth laid asleep-
Those dead seemed but the shadows of my days
That passed and left me in the sun’s bright rays.
Now though you go on smiling in the sun
Our love is slain, and love and you were one.
You are the first, you I have known so long,
Whose death was deadly, a tremendous wrong.
Therefore I seek the faith that sets it right
Amid the lilies and the candle-light.
I think on Heaven, for in that air so dear
We two may meet, confused and parted here.
Ah, when man’s dearest dies,’tis then he goes
To that old balm that heals the centuries’ woes.
Then Christ’s wild cry in all the streets is rife:-
“I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

Analysis, meaning and summary of Vachel Lindsay's poem The Hope of the Resurrection

3 Comments

  1. Dean says:

    My wife went home with our Lord a little over a month ago following a brief battle with cancer. This poem so profoundly describes my love for her and my hope in seeing her again. Thank you for sharing your gifts and talents. Praise the Lord Jesus. Blessings :^)

  2. Dean says:

    My wife went home with our Lord a little over a month ago following a brief battle with cancer. This poem so profoundly describes my love for her and my hope in seeing her again. Thank you for sharing your gifts and talents. Praise the Lord Jesus. Blessings :^)

  3. David Holland says:

    I am in a quasi-relationship with a girl who left me a year ago. I am heart broken and daily pour my heart out to the Lord Jesus for healing and support.

    Tonight I read Lindsay’s poem and found great healing in its reading especially in the last two lines: Then Christ’s wild cry in all the streets is rife:–“I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

    What a grand impact it had on my life and thinking. It is only as he raises this girl, this relationship from the dead that I am able to go on and to proclam that He is the Resurrection and the Life. I am grateful for God’s timing.

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