In some brown pool the mirrored cardinal-flower
Lovely and lonely,—why along these ways
Sprang up so oft the sudden thought of him,
A wayside joy; why memories of his song
Floated upon the silvery thistledown;
Yet near he seemed. And not less near to-day,
Though all he loved, and sang of, gleams through tears,
Fresh-haloed with the pathos of the thought
That near or far we shall not see again
Those luminous eyes whence looked his lyric soul.