THE END OF IT


WE met, and on the decorous drive touched hands,
"Good-bye; a pleasant trip to you," I said.
The sunlight slept upon the still uplands,
Your figure fading in the dusty red
I watched awhile, then turned with casual face
To where a torrent glimmered down a glade,
No human voice troubled the lovely place,
Only the fall a cruel music made.

A time I lay and marked with curious stare
The keen sun-lances quiver on the lawn,
And thought on shrines all voiceless now and bare,
The holy genius of their boughs withdrawn,
Till with hoarse cry the train that you were on
Stabbed the indifference of the empty air…

Then I awoke and knew that you were gone.