# Estrangement explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Georgia Douglas Johnson.

## What happens

The speaker reflects on the futility of pride that keeps them apart from a loved one, imagining a future where death erases such barriers and wondering if reconciliation would then be sought.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Loss

The poem explores the pain of estrangement and the longing for reunion beyond death.

### The Passing of Time and Mortality

The speaker contemplates their own death and the eventual death of the loved one, framing estrangement within the inevitability of mortality.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown

The speaker, reflecting on pride and estrangement, and contemplating death and reconciliation.

### Life

Implied as the force that keeps the speaker and the loved one apart through pride.

## Key lines

> Some day I shall be dead, and pride / Which kept me from your feet, / Shall be the burden of the song / My cold lips shall repeat.

One day I will die, and the pride that prevented me from humbling myself before you will become the sorrowful theme of my final words.

_The speaker foresees death as the moment when pride's cost becomes clear._

> And some day when you too shall find / A pillow in the sod, / Would you then spurn an hour with me / Above⁠—where daisies nod?

And when you also lie in the grave, would you still refuse to spend an hour with me in the afterlife, where daisies sway?

_The speaker questions whether estrangement will persist even beyond death._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_9_se/chapters/estrangement
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_9_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_9_se/chapters