Her Immortality

 UPON a noon I pilgrimed through
A pasture, mile by mile,
Unto the place where I last saw
My dead Love's living smile.


And sorrowing I lay me down
Upon the heated sod:
It seemed as if my body pressed
The very ground she trod.


I lay, and thought; and in a trance
She came and stood me by--
The same, even to the marvellous ray
That used to light her eye.


"You draw me, and I come to you,
My faithful one," she said,
In voice that had the moving tone
It bore in maidenhead.


She said: "'Tis seven years since I died:
Few now remember me;
My husband clasps another bride;
My children mothers she.


My brethren, sisters, and my friends
Care not to meet my sprite:
Who prized me most I did not know
Till I passed down from sight.
"

I said: "My days are lonely here;
I need thy smile alway:
I'll use this night my ball or blade,
And join thee ere the day.
"

A tremor stirred her tender lips,
Which parted to dissuade:
"That cannot be, O friend," she cried;
"Think, I am but a Shade!

"A Shade but in its mindful ones
Has immortality;
By living, me you keep alive,
By dying you slay me.


"In you resides my single power
Of sweet continuance here;
On your fidelity I count
Through many a coming year.
"

--I started through me at her plight,
So suddenly confessed:
Dismissing late distaste for life,
I craved its bleak unrest.


"I will not die, my One of all!--
To lengthen out thy days
I'll guard me from minutest harms
That may invest my ways!"

She smiled and went.
 Since then she comes
Oft when her birth-moon climbs,
Or at the seasons' ingresses
Or anniversary times;

But grows my grief.
 When I surcease,
Through whom alone lives she,
Ceases my Love, her words, her ways,
Never again to be!

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