When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
For each was loved of each.
I listened to their honest chat:
Said one: ’To-morrow we shall
be 10
Plod plod along the featureless sands,
And coasting miles and miles of sea.’
Said one: ’Before the turn of tide
We will achieve the eyrie-seat.’
Said one: ’To-morrow shall be like
To-day, but much more sweet.’
‘To-morrow,’ said they, strong with hope,
And dwelt upon the pleasant way:
‘To-morrow,’ cried they, one and all,
While no one spoke of yesterday.
20
Their life stood full at blessed noon;
I, only I, had passed away:
‘To-morrow and to-day,’ they cried;
I was of yesterday.
I shivered comfortless, but cast
No chill across the tablecloth;
I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad
To stay, and yet to part how loth:
I passed from the familiar room,
I who from love had passed away,
30
Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.
Sonnet
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth
as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh
and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish
wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after
strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of
life.
I had a love in soft south land,
Beloved through April far in May;
He waited on my lightest breath,
And never dared to say me nay.
He saddened if my cheer was sad,
But gay he grew if I was gay;
We never differed on a hair,
My yes his yes, my nay his nay.
The wedding hour was come, the aisles
Were flushed with sun and flowers that
day; 10
I pacing balanced in my thoughts:
’It’s quite too late to think
of nay.’—
My bridegroom answered in his turn,
Myself had almost answered ‘yea:’
When through the flashing nave I heard
A struggle and resounding ‘nay.’
