Now do I know How newly dead men go As ragged ghosts among familiar ways, Seeking to live again remembered days. I see one stand, Vale and Mount on either hand, And saying, "Here I walked and walked with her; Here was wheat, and hops here, and charlock there. "Here was elder, First-tinted berries of guelder. Here, long before, wild apple flushed full pink. Here broke that fire of violets, I think— "Or was it—yes, It was there they burned to death. How all things burned that spring, and burned away, As spring burned into summer, and then lay "Glowing and prone, With summer lovelier grown! My heels with hers made rhyme upon the flint, In music voice and silences were blent. "And now, never, Never, never, never, never, Never again!" And turning away he aches, And with old mortal sorrow his heart breaks; Wishing he were But one sad hour with her On that salt road, with hill and vale and cloud, Oast-houses, orchards, violets, skylarks loud. O, now I know How one new-dead must go, How in his haunted shadow-brain for ever Sounds the forsaken, "Never, never, never!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TWO OF A TRADE by SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY DUFFIELD ANSWER TO MASTER WITHER'S SONG, 'SHALL I, WASTING IN DESPAIR?' by BEN JONSON UP-HILL by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE WATER-LILY by JOHN BANISTER TABB BROTHER BENEDICT by ALFRED AUSTIN THE SPIDER AND THE BEE (A TALE FOR THE TIMES) by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON |