| |
| UPON a noon I pilgrimed through | |
| A pasture, mile by mile, | |
| Unto the place where I last saw | |
| My dead Love’s living smile. | |
| |
| And sorrowing I lay me down | 5 |
| Upon the heated sod: | |
| It seemed as if my body pressed | |
| The very ground she trod. | |
| |
| I lay, and thought; and in a trance | |
| She came and stood me by— | 10 |
| The same, even to the marvellous ray | |
| That used to light her eye. | |
| |
| “You draw me, and I come to you, | |
| My faithful one,” she said, | |
| In voice that had the moving tone | 15 |
| It bore in maidenhead. | |
| |
| She said: “‘Tis seven years since I died: | |
| Few now remember me; | |
| My husband clasps another bride; | |
| My children mothers she. | 20 |
| |
| My brethren, sisters, and my friends | |
| Care not to meet my sprite: | |
| Who prized me most I did not know | |
| Till I passed down from sight.” | |
| |
| I said: “My days are lonely here; | 25 |
| I need thy smile alway: | |
| I’ll use this night my ball or blade, | |
| And join thee ere the day.” | |
| |
| A tremor stirred her tender lips, | |
| Which parted to dissuade: | 30 |
| “That cannot be, O friend,” she cried; | |
| “Think, I am but a Shade! | |
| |
| “A Shade but in its mindful ones | |
| Has immortality; | |
| By living, me you keep alive, | 35 |
| By dying you slay me. | |
| |
| “In you resides my single power | |
| Of sweet continuance here; | |
| On your fidelity I count | |
| Through many a coming year.” | 40 |
| |
| —I started through me at her plight, | |
| So suddenly confessed: | |
| Dismissing late distaste for life, | |
| I craved its bleak unrest. | |
| |
| “I will not die, my One of all!— | 45 |
| To lengthen out thy days | |
| I’ll guard me from minutest harms | |
| That may invest my ways!” | |
| |
| She smiled and went. Since then she comes | |
| Oft when her birth-moon climbs, | 50 |
| Or at the seasons’ ingresses | |
| Or anniversary times; | |
| |
| But grows my grief. When I surcease, | |
| Through whom alone lives she, | |
| Ceases my Love, her words, her ways, | 55 |
| Never again to be! | |
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