Classic Poem

This unforgettable place, dear love,
These falling hills, O clear enough;
My memory fits it like a glove.

So stood that one lean row of trees,
So on this slope busy with bees
Frail rock-rose spread its golden fleece.

There in that hollow henbane grew;
Seeing it first I called to you,
Its sluggish beauty to both new.

Calling you now I call in vain;
Your absence works in me like pain
More poisonous than dull henbane.

Now thinking how I stand alone.
I ask, Am I the selfsame one
Who made two with you in that sun?

They say these flakes of flesh depart
Till of quick brain and the slow heart
No part remains the selfsame part.

Yet love remains and memory
Of God and you, of earth and sky,
All that is intimately I.

So when it hurts the heart to think
Of that most bitter, abrupt brink
Where the low-shouldered coffins sink,

I ask, should spirit be aghast
That slipt slow bodies in the past
To fling off the whole flesh at last?

You absent from me are most near;
It is such presence with me here
That sanctifies this solemn air.