Love Lies Bleeding

Love that is dead and buried, yesterday 
  Out of his grave rose up before my face, 
  No recognition in his look, no trace 
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey. 
While I, remembering, found no word to say, 
  But felt my quickened heart leap in its place; 
  Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days, 
Caught echoes of all music passed away. 
Was this indeed to meet?—I mind me yet 
  In youth we met when hope and love were quick, 
    We parted with hope dead, but love alive: 
  I mind me how we parted then heart sick, 
    Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive:— 
Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

Credit

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 13, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“Love Lies Bleeding” was collected in The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti (Macmillan, 1904). About the poem, Matthew Puller, a poet and teacher at Heathdale Christian College, writes in his essay “Love Lies Bleeding: Love, Loss and the Poetry of Christina Rossetti,” published in 2013, “It is almost impossible to read much of Rossetti’s work and fail to see that she was a woman who knew what it was to both love and lose that love. There are many poems and songs which deal with the impact of death upon love. ‘Song (When I am dead, my dearest),’ ‘Remember,’ ‘Echo,’ ‘A Dream’ and ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ all concern themselves with love that is lost, forgotten, dead or fragile.”