INTERIOR
I and myself swore enmity. Alack,
Myself has tied my hands behind my back.
Yielding, I know there's no excuse in them—
I was accomplice to the stratagem.
ON A FRIEND RECENTLY DEAD
I
The stream goes fast.
When this that is the present is the past,
'Twill be as all the other pasts have been,
A failing hill, a daily dimming scene,
A far strange port with foreign life astir
The ship has left behind, the voyager
Will never return to; no, nor see again,
Though with a heart full of longing he may strain
Back to project himself, and once more count
The boats, the whitened walls that climbed the mount,
Mark the cathedral's roof, the gathered spires,
The vanes, the windows red with sunset's fires,
The gap of the market-place, and watch again
The coloured groups of women, and the men
Lounging at ease along the low stone wall
That fringed the harbour; and there beyond it all
High pastures morning and evening scattered with small
Specks that were grazing sheep.... It is all gone,
It is all blurred that once so brightly shone;
He cannot now with the old clearness see
The rust upon one ringbolt of the quay.
II
And yesterday is dead, and you are dead.
Your duplicate that hovered in my head
Thins like blown wreathing smoke, your features grow
To interrupted outlines, and all will go
Unless I fight dispersal with my will...
So I shall do it ... but too conscious still
That, when we walked together, had I known
How soon your journey was to end alone,
I should not, now that you have gone from view,
Be gathering derelict odds and ends of you;
But in the intense lucidity of pain
Your likeness would have burnt into my brain.
I did not know; lovable and unique,
As volatile as a bubble and as weak,
You sat with me, and my eyes registered
This thing and that, and sluggishly I heard
Your voice, remembering here and there a word.