THEY drew him from the darkened room,
Where, swooning in a peace profound,
Beneath a heavy fragrance drowned
Her grey form glimmered in the gloom.
Death smoothed from her each sordid trace
Of Life; at last he read the scroll;
For all the meaning of her soul
Flowered upon her perfect face.
-In other worlds her soul finds scope;
Her spirit lives; she is not dead,�
In his dulled ear they said and said,
Suave-murmuring the ancient Hope.
-You loved her; she was worthy love.
Think you her spheral soul can cease?
Nay, she has ripened to release
From this bare earth, and waits above.�
His brain their clamour heard aloof;
He, too, had said the self-same thing;
But now his heart was quivering
For more than comfort-parched for proof.
He put them from him. -Let me be;
You proffer in my bitter need
The coward comfort of a creed
That tears her soul apart from me.

-She waits in no drear Heaven afar.
Her woman's soul in all its worth,
Yearning for me, for homely earth,
No gates of beaten gold could bar.
-No, she is near me, ever close;
One with the world, but free again;
One with the breezes and the rain;
One with the mountain and the rose.
-She knows me not; her voice is dumb;
But aching through the twilight peers,
And, unremembering, yet with tears,
She strives to say she cannot come.
-Yes, she is changed, but not destroyed;
The words that were her soul are hushed;
The gem that was her heart is crushed-
Its fragments white stars in the void.
-And I shall see her in disguise;
In the grey vistas of the street
A face that hints of her I meet;
Whispers her soul from alien eyes.
-In Time's great garden, spring on spring,
The blossoms glow; then at a breath
Their petals flutter down to death-
Ah love, how brief your blossoming!

-Death has but severed part from part.
Borne on an ever-moving air
The fragrance of her life somewhere
Freshens some lonely wistful heart!
-No word of hers can God forget;
Her laughter Time dare not disperse;
It shakes the tense-strung universe,
And with the chord it trembles yet.
-Each mood of hers, each fancy slight,
In deep pulsations, ring on ring,
Dilating, ever-widening,
Ripples across the outer night.
-Her life with deathless charm was fraught,
And God with smiles remembers now
The puzzled pucker of her brow
Ruffled with sudden gusts of thought.
-And in His cosmic memory wise
Still live her subtle features thin,
Her dear iconoclastic chin,
The grave enigma of her eyes.
-And if beyond she might draw breath.
And know that I was not with her,
The wistful eyes of her despair
Would be more desolate than death.

-But not to meet her in the wide
Night-spaces I must wander through;
To kiss the pretty pout I knew,
And nevermore to hear her chide;
-To speak those childish words that were
So foolish-sweet, so passionate-wise;
Her subtle fragrance recognise
And hear the whispers of her hair! ...
-Her sun has set; but still, sublime,
She is a star, of God a part;
She is a petal at the heart
Of the eternal flower of Time.
-I triumph so beyond regret,
I win her immortality:
Where, Death, your vaunted victory?
Where, Grave, your sting? And yet-and yet--!�