Classic Poem

Walking in the garden
At the heart of noon,
In my hand a flower,
On my lips a tune,

I saw a face before me,
Dim eyes, dim eyes I knew!
I saw a shadow-woman,
The garden glanced her through.

She hid no branch behind her,
Through her the rose-bough ran;
She was a ghostly woman
To meet a living man.

“What change, what change, my lover!
Ah, heedless God!” she cried,
“If help there were in love or prayer,
Dear lad, thou hadst not died!”

“'Tis thou art dead,” I faltered,
“The futile prayers are mine;
My foot still marks the garden walk—
No print nor sound from thine!”

“Lie soft,” she cried, “vext spirit
That once wert true and brave!”
Her dim eyes sorrowed on me
As though they watched my grave.

“Wouldst thou sell me as the living sell,
An old love for a new?
Dream not so wild! Thou hast no choice—
Lie soft!—the dead are true.

“From their life-moulded passions
Didst thou dream the dead were free?
The rose thou comest bringing
Thou bringest still to me.

“Wouldst thou sing to another bosom
Love-rhythms phantom-fine?
Still, still thou comest singing
Thy heartbeats set to mine.

“Yea, though her magic call thee
To rise and put death by,
Though thy body walk to meet her,
Thy perished heart have I.

“For the lure the maiden fashions
To snare the ghost of thee,
Ere thou wert dead, my lover,
Was what thou lovedst in me.”