- THE GRAVE
WHAT are you thinking when so you look,
Holding my hand with cold, cold fingers,
As we watch this babbling summer brook
Where the virginal flush of spring still lingers?'
"Your eyes are vacant. They stare and stare.
They seem not to see these blossoms white
That drink the sun and perfume the air.
They stare like a dead man's into the night."
"I think of a white road crossing a hill,
And a ruined church where no man passes,
And a tombstone lying hushed and still
And a north wind whispering thro' the grasses.
"Is my body not warm to your touch.
That you hold me so quietly on your knees?
Look how the sunlight falls thro' the trees!
Is love dead so soon? Is it always such?"
"The white road crosses the barren hill;
No blossoms are there, no bodies warm;
Only a tombstone, very still,
And one beneath it, a shrouded form."
"Had she lips that were warm like mine?
When I am dead a thousand lovers
Will kiss the earth my body covers;
And the splendid sun on my dust will shine.
