“Somewhere, in desolate, wind-swept space,
In Twilight land, in No-man’s land,
Two wandering shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.
“‘And who are you?’ cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light,
‘I know not,’ said the second shape,
‘I only died last night.’”
The picture had fascinated her profoundly until she had suddenly noticed that one of the shapes looked as if she had left her teeth on her death-bed. She laughed aloud suddenly. . . .
For the first time she felt curious about the hereafter. Poetry had demonstrated to her that hereafter of some sort there must be: the poet sees only the soul of his creations, makes the soul talk as it would if untrammelled of flesh, and in unconscious forecast of its freedom. Browning, alone, would have taught her this. His greater poems were those of another and loftier world. No wonder poets were a mad unhappy race with their brief awakenings of the cosmic sense, their long contemplations of what should be, in awful contrast to what is. . . .