There we were sitting, like too-thin ghosts Afraid to speak -- Afraid? -- We who had feared Not anything were there afraid and still. I gazed into the pregnant dark; and you -- You who had been the effervescent star, The firmament to me -- you were quite still: Still as the darkling sky, if skies be still. I listened for the word I wanted there, And heard the awful stillness . . . Was it you Remembering? -- Forgetting? -- in a void? Was it your touching voice I heard a while, The voice that throbbed in trembling silver once? But I was in a wonderment and hurt . . . Was it pain I felt, or your still presence Pressing into my spirit like a sword? Yet all of the time -- and time is most unquiet -- We were like ghosts awaiting some still doom. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FLUSH OR FAUNUS by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING OLD KING COLE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE LAST OF AUTUMN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN ON THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, EMPEROR OF THE RUSSIAS by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD SIC VITA by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) A BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 19 by THOMAS CAMPION |