There spoke the unhesitating mind of one who knew the grim job ought to have been effectively ended, the tongue of one who came of soldier blood.
We may guess that the strain of those last years sapped and undermined her in ways the soldier spirit would not betray. We know she qualified in them for that Paradise she most desired, of those who
“die, driven against the wall.”
If we seek about for mitigation of our bewilderment over her loss to earth, the way seems to be not only the old road of unquestioning thankfulness when a soul arrives at sanctuary from pain, but the solace of a more intimate friendship with her work. Curiously personal to her sounds that exquisite translation from Callimachus on the death of his friend, the poet Heraclitus:
“They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead:
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
“And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,