I looked upon a dead girl’s face and heard
What seemed the voice of Death cry out to me,
Deep in her heart, all of the agony
Of her lost dreams, complaining word on word:—
How on her soul no soul had touched, or stirred
Her life’s sad depths to rippling melody,
Or made the imaged longing, there, to be
The realization of a hope deferred.
So in her life had Love behaved to her.
Between the lonely chapters of her years
And her young eyes making no golden blur
With god-bright face and hair; who led me to
Her side at last, and bade me, through my tears,
With Death’s dumb lips, too late, to see and know.