Much less have I heart to palter when the matter to decide

Now becomes "Was ending ending once and always, when you died?"

Did the face, the form I lifted as it lay, reveal the loss

Not alone of life but soul? A tribute to yon flowers and moss,

What of you remains beside? A memory! Easy to attest

"Certainly from out the world that one believes who knew her best

Such was good in her, such fair, which fair and good were great perchance

Had but fortune favored, bidden each shy faculty advance;

After all—who knows another? Only as I know, I speak."

So much of you lives within me while I live my year or week.