Classic Poem

Thy life is lonely utterly.
O one I know of emptied days!
A place of wakeful pain for me,
Remote by consecrated ways,—
If I could only die in thee.

We are apart, whose hands clung so.
We might have lived—I mourn with thee.
Sweet life was not for us to know.
We cannot die till death shall be.
Lament thy love, and let me go.

Yet patient rebel that thou art,
All thy quiet life awaits me now,
In a world of thoughts that lies apart.
Are we not thoughts ourselves, sayest thou,
Shall distance keep us heart from heart?

Thy white hours clad as mourners all
With faces to the ground go by.
And sweet decorous tears do fall
Since we were parted, thou and I,
In one long feast of funeral.

Thy thoughts have made a silentness
Because thy music is away,
That they may fold themselves and guess
The lost airs in the silent day.
And they are pale with tenderness.

O blessed thoughts! O holy hours!
No place is fairer under heaven
With diamond dews and emerald showers,
Than this of mine that thou hast given,
No warmer winds, no taller flowers.—

And yet I have not reached mine end.
How shall I die, although I have
Thy love, thy tears to mourn me and tend?
Lo thou hast made an exquisite grave
And I am living O my Friend,

And run to all the winds that call.
Sweet are the thoughts, O loneliest
Thou glorifiest me withal,—
My subjects—if I could but rest
And die the quiet queen of them all.

And all thy flowers beneath the rain
Are happy memories thou dost keep.
Mine eyes closed in them, for thy pain,
And like a child's that feigneth sleep,
When I forgot, unclosed again.

Thy far life is no place for me.
Oh lay thy great love under the flowers
—Unless an angel pitying thee
Having no need of the live hours
Lies in the place where I should be.