Ah it was brave of him
Let them cry “shame.”
Life made no slave of him!
But you’ll exclaim,
Was she worth trying for?
He thought her so.
Was she worth dying for?
Yes, and then no.
“No,” for a wiser man.
“No,” for a less.
But the heart cries “Amen,”
When he says “yes.”
There in the pool he was
Just a dead thing.
O what a fool he was,
O what a king!
DEAD LOVER.
TELL me, dead lover, you who broke my heart
(O dead indeed, since love himself is dead).
Need I remember that we came to part,
May I forget to whom and why you fled?
Tell me, dead lover, since the grave is strong,
And those who sleep are cured of joy and pain,
And now no love may reach you, do I wrong
If I begin to love you all again?
And see, dead lover, since the shadows fall
And nothing now is false and nothing true.
Might I not dream (you would not know at all)
That I, O love, was loved once more by you.
And since, dead lover, death defeats your pride,
And ere it dreamed of pride my love awoke,
O let me think, it was because you died,
And not because you left me, my heart broke.