Anne Kelledy Gilbert

Grief

Volume 16:1, January 2015
Sonnet Issue

Grief

Adams Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery

Dry cones of yesteryear hang from the pine,
As bronzed and retrospective as is she,
The still, bronze woman who keeps pensively
Her tireless vigil in this bosky shrine.
The juniper’s jade prisms softly shine
Against the incense-gloom; a vested bee
Drones through the sacred stillness reverently,
Where rhododendron-lamps incardadine.

The Spring is dying with the dying day.
How many a season, pondering here alone,
While breathed the rose or sighed the motley leaf,
Have you watched wending its appointed way?
Men call you Peace…because they hear no moan…
The Peace of God…distilled from conquered grief.

 

Anne Kelledy Gilbert (1859—1944) was a DC resident and author of a book of poems, The Angel of the Battlefield (1928). She also was included in the anthology District of Columbia Poets: An Anthology of 32 Contemporaries, edited by Edith Mirick (1932). The latter's introduction praises her as a "true prophet of her native city," stating that "Mrs. Gilbert has devoted her art deliberately to celebrating her city, and her book is one of the few which have kept this purpose in mind." Born in Port Gibson, MS, Gilbert contributed to such periodicals as the Washington Post, New York Times, and Literary Digest. She is buried in Neenah, WI, the home of her husband, Albert Morgan Gilbert.