blog

Out of context: Reply #16622

  • Started
  • Last post
  • 76,739 Responses
  • _eh_0

    They hail me as one living, But don’t they know That I have died of late years, Untombed although?

    I am but a shape that stands here, A pulseless mould, A pale past picture, screening Ashes gone cold.

    Not at a minute’s warning, Not in a loud hour, For me ceased Time’s enchantments In hall and bower.

    There was no tragic transit, No catch of breath, When silent seasons inched me On to this death. . . .

    —A Troubadour-youth I rambled With Life for lyre, The beats of being raging In me like a fire.

    But when I practised eyeing The goal of men, It iced me, and I perished A little then.

    When passed my friend, my kinsfolk Through the last Door,
    And left me standing bleakly, I died yet more;

    And when my Love’s heart kindled In hate of me,
    Wherefore I knew not, died I One more degree.

    And if when I died fully I cannot say, And changed into the corpse-thing I am to-day.

    Yet is it that, though whiling The time somehow In walking, talking, smiling, I live not now.

View thread