Within us still the monster shape
That shrieked in air and howled in slime,
What are we?—partly man and ape—
The tools of fate, the toys of time!
2
The bitterness of his bereavement speaks in him.
Vased in her bedroom window, white
As her chaste girlhood, never lost,
I smelt the roses—and the night
Outside was fog and frost.
What though I claimed her dying there!
God nor one angel understood
Nor cared, who from sweet feet to hair
Had changed to snow her blood.
She had been mine so long, so long!
Our harp of life was one in word—
Why did death thrust his hand among
The chords and break one chord!
A placid lily was the face,
A sad pale rose the mouth I kissed
That morn, when filled with Heaven's own grace
She passed into the mist.