In through the porch and up the silent stair;
Little is changed, I know so well the ways;–
Here, the dead came to meet me; it was there
The dream was dreamed in unforgotten days.
But who is this that hurries on before,
A flitting shade the brooding shades among?–
She turned,–I saw her face,–O God, it wore
The face I used to wear when I was young!
I thought my spirit and my heart were tamed
To deadness; dead the pangs that agonise.
The old grief springs to choke me,–I am shamed
Before that little ghost with eager eyes.
O turn away, let her not see, not know!
How should she bear it, how should understand?
O hasten down the stairway, haste and go,
And leave her dreaming in the silent land.
Amy Levy (1861 – 1889) was a Victorian era poetess and prose author who wrote in English in the second half of the 19th century, a Jewess, she also wrote on feminist and Jewish themes. She suffered from an acute depression, was likely a lesbian, and is now remembered as a acquaintance of Oscar Wilde. The poetess exterminated herself, that is committed suicide, by inhaling carbon monoxide at her beloved parents’ home. She was the first Jewess to be cremated in England and her ashes are burried in Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery in London.