Roger L. Sergel. The Gift of Death. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The Gift of Death

By Roger L. Sergel


I CANNOT lose you, dear, let come what may,
For you are with me as a melody
And have been through the ages. I can see
No time in all times that within me stay
When you were not the worth of every day.	5
The names I called you by have passed from me,
The forms I loved you in perhaps will be
Again sweet woman forms of loveliest clay.
And then, perhaps, you may be as a breath
Of rosy flame along the narrowing west;	10
For even now in all that I love best
Your name starts as a music—and the hue
Of beauty trembles through me. Dear, in death
I’ll find, not immortality, but you.