THEY hail me as one living, But don't they know That I have died of late years, Untombed although? I am but a shape that stands here, A pulseless mould, A pale past picture, screening Ashes gone cold. Not at a minute's warning, Not in a loud hour, For me ceased Time's enchantments In hall and bower. There was no tragic transit, No catch of breath, When silent seasons inched me On to this death.... - A Troubadour-youth I rambled With Life for lyre, The beats of being raging In me like fire. But when I practised eyeing The goal of men, It iced me, and I perished A little then. When passed my friend, my kinsfolk, Through the Last Door, And left me standing bleakly, I died yet more; And when my Love's heart kindled In hate of me, Wherefore I knew not, died I One more degree. And if when I died fully I cannot say, And changed into the corpse-thing I am to-day; Yet is it that, though whiling The time somehow In walking, talking, smiling, I live not now. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A LEGEND OF BREGENZ by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER AN HYMN TO THE EVENING by PHILLIS WHEATLEY PASSED BY by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS THE PEACE: TO HEAVEN ON A BEETLE by ARISTOPHANES OUR DAILY BREAD by MALTBIE DAVENPORT BABCOCK |