Thus had he perished; buried from the day;
By the swift poison caught and slain;
By the kind poison unmarred, rendered fair
Back to the upper earth again—
The warm and breathing earth that knew him not;
And men and women wept to see—
For kindred had he none among us all—
How lonely even the dead may be.
We wept, I say; we wept who knew him not;
But sharp, a tearless woman sprang
From out the crowd (that quavering voice I knew),
And terrible her cry outrang:
"I pass, I pass ye all! Make way! Stand back!
Mine is the place ye yield," she said.
"He was my lover once—my own, my own;
Oh, he was mine, and he is dead!"
Women and men, we gave her royal way;
Proud as young joy the smile she had.
We knew her for a neighbor in the Town,
Unmated, solitary, sad.
Youth, hope, and love, we gave her silent way,
Calm as a sigh she swept us all;
Then swiftly, as a word leans to a thought,
We saw her lean to him, and fall
Upon the happy body of the dead—
An aged woman, poor and gray.
Bright as the day, immortal as young Love,
And glorious as life, he lay.
Her shrunken hands caressed his rounded cheek,
Her white locks on his golden hair
Fell sadly. "O love!" she cried with shriveled lips,
"O love, my love, my own, my fair!
"See, I am old, and all my heart is gray.
They say the dead are aye forgot—
There, there, my sweet! I whisper, leaning low,
That all these women hear it not.
"Deep in the darkness there, didst think on me?
High in the heavens, have ye been true?
Since I was young, and since you called me fair,
I never loved a man but you.