Realization

 I smiled with skeptic mocking where they told me you were dead,
You of the airy laughter and lightly twinkling feet;
"They tell a dream that haunted a chill gray dawn," I said,
"Death could not touch or claim a thing so vivid and so sweet!" 

I looked upon you coffined amid your virgin flowers,
But even that white silence could bring me no belief:
"She lies in maiden sleep," I said. "and in the youngling hours
Her sealed dark eyes will open to scorn our foolish grief." 

But when I went at moonrise to our ancient trysting place. . . . . 
And, oh, the wind was keening in the fir-boughs overhead! . . . . 
And you came never to me with your little gypsy face,
Your lips and hands of welcome, I knew that you were dead!

Form: Lyric Comments

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