To a gray city street, to flowerless ways.
On the bright steel, great spots of rust had grown—
‘It would not turn so easily as then’
(I thought), ‘and “Rosebank” is no more my own—
I have no claim to enter it again.
‘Maybe its door has now a different lock—
And oh, if even I could venture there,
What should I find? my misery to mock—
Ghosts of the dead—strangers’ careless stare.’
I took the key and laid it out of sight: