Death Gothic Poem: The Necromancer

'tis said a man dies not, for those who loved
Preserve his life in treasured memory.
No tender thought of thee 'gainst death can win,
For too soon, thou hast perished, thou art free.
No sweet remembered touch, nor fond visage
Comes to light my own obscurity.

The silent sands alone haunt thought and dream,
A barren calm, the failure of all strife,
Exhausted pyre where brightness found an end.
The necromancer's rite brings naught to life:
Recall, remember! Fool, who seeks to bind,
Wild evocation spent in hopeless quest--
No voice responds; bleak vision fills the mind:
The blackened ground where love was laid to rest.

No need in me remains for sight or sense,
To wander where we dreamed, and loved, and wept,
Nor dwell in graveyards of experience:
Though faith is broken, bitter vow is kept.
He cannot live through me; this shattered frame
Holds no bright ghost; the vision, growing dim,
Transmutes to ashes ravaged by the flame.
It falls to me, therefore, to follow him.
The promise sworn that death should never part,
Borne out, the vow much stronger than the heart

-written by Erszebet Bathory