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| I KNOW that these poor rags of womanhood— | |
| This oaten pipe whereon the wild winds play’d | |
| Making sad music,—tatter’d and outfray’d, | |
| Cast off, play’d out—can hold no more of good, | |
| Of love or song, or sense of sun and shade. | 5 |
| |
| What homely neighbours elbow me (hard by | |
| ’Neath the black yews) I know I shall not know, | |
| Nor take account of changing winds that blow | |
| Shifting the golden arrow, set on high | |
| On the gray spire, nor mark who come and go. | 10 |
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| Yet would I lie in some familiar place, | |
| Nor share my rest with uncongenial dead,— | |
| Somewhere, may be, where friendly feet will tread,— | |
| As if from out some little chink of space | |
| Mine eyes might see them tripping overhead. | 15 |
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| And tho’ too sweet to deck a sepulchre | |
| Seem twinkling daisy-buds and meadow grass; | |
| And so would more than serve me, lest they pass | |
| Who fain would know what woman rested there, | |
| What her demeanour or her story was,— | 20 |
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| For there I would that on a sculptured stone | |
| (Fenced round with iron-work to keep secure) | |
| Should sleep a form with folded palms demure, | |
| In aspect like the dreamer that was gone, | |
| With these words carved, ‘I hoped, but was not sure.’ | 25 |
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