Death Sonnet I

Gabriela Mistral 1889 (Vicuña) – 1957 (Hempstead)



From the icy niche where men placed you
I lower your body to the sunny, poor earth.
They didn't know I too must sleep in it
and dream on the same pillow.

I place you in the sunny ground, with a
mother's sweet care for her napping child,
and the earth will be a soft cradle
when it receives your hurt childlike body.

I scatter bits of earth and rose dust,
and in the moon's airy and blue powder
what is left of you is a prisoner.

I leave singing my lovely revenge.
No hand will reach into the obscure depth
to argue with me over your handful of bones.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 22, 2023

34 sec read
303

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXX XXXX XAA XXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 545
Words 112
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3

Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. more…

All Gabriela Mistral poems | Gabriela Mistral Books

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