Her final summer was it,
And yet we guessed it not;
If tenderer industriousness
Pervaded her, we thought
A further force of life
Developed from within, —
When Death lit all the shortness up,
And made the hurry plain.
We wondered at our blindness, —
When nothing was to see
But her Carrara guide-post, —
At our stupidity,
When, duller than our dulness,
The busy darling lay,
So busy was she, finishing,
So leisurely were we!
XXIX.
GHOSTS.
One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.
Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.
Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.