I HAVE heard echoes and seen visions of you
Often of late. Once yawning at a play
A sad keen rapture suddenly pierced me through
Because one puppet moved and sighed your way;

An omnibus-conductor fixed your glance
Intense, preoccupied—upon my fare;
I saw your stooping shoulders, at a dance,
Lean by a doorway: but you were not there.

Down Oxford Street, in the slow shopping crowd,
Hearing your very voice, “Ah, that's superb!”
I turned,—a tawdry simpering little dowd
Passed by, and left me trembling on the curb.