Loss
Dead here in Florence! Yes, she died.
The prophesying doctors lied
Who swore the South should save her life.
But no, she died, my little wife.
I brought her South; the whole long way.
She was as curious and as gay
As a young bird that tries its wing.
And halts to look at everything.
sudden-turning little head,
Dear eyes — dear changing, wistful eyes—
Your love, your eager life, now lies
Under this earth of Florence, dead.
All of her dead except the Past—
The finished Past, that cannot grow—
But that, at least, will always last
Mocking, consoling, Life-in-show.
Will that fade too ? Seven days ago
She was alive and by my side.
And yet I cannot now divide,
The pallid, gasping girl who died
From her I used to love and know.
Only in moments lives the Past!
One like a sunlit peak stands out
Above the blurring mist and doubt
That creep about our dead so fast.
All night the train has rushed through France,
1 watch the shaken lamp-light dance
About my darling's sleeping face.
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