I, too, can play at the vain pretence, Can feign you dead; while a voice sounds clear In the inmost depths of my heart: Go hence, Go, find your friend who is far from here. Not here, but somewhere where I can reach! Can a man with motion, hearing and sight, And a thought that answered my thought and speech, Be utterly lost and vanished quite? Whose hand was warm in my hand last week?... My heart beat fast as I neared the gate-- Was it this I had come to seek, “A stone that stared with your name and date;” A hideous, turfless, fresh-made mound; A silence more cold than the wind that blew? What had I lost, and what had I found? My flowers that mocked me fell to the ground-- Then, and then only, my spirit knew. _In the Mile End Road._ [Illustration: text decoration] How like her! But ’tis she herself, Comes up the crowded street, How little did I think, the morn, My only love to meet! Whose else that motion and that mien? Whose else that airy tread? For one strange moment I forgot My only love was dead. _Contradictions._ [Illustration: text decoration] Now, even, I cannot think it true, My friend, that there is no more you. Almost as soon were no more I, Which were, of course, absurdity! Your place is bare, you are not seen, Your grave, I’m told, is growing green; And both for you and me, you know, There’s no Above and no Below. That you are dead must be inferred, And yet my thought rejects the word. _Twilight._ [Illustration: text decoration] So Mary died last night! To-day The news has travelled here. And Robert died at Michaelmas, And Walter died last year. I went at sunset up the lane, I lingered by the stile; I saw the dusky fields that stretched Before me many a mile. I leaned against the stile, and thought Of her whose soul had fled.-- I knew that years on years must pass Or e’er I should be dead. _In September._ [Illustration: text decoration] The sky is silver-grey; the long Slow waves caress the shore.-- On such a day as this I have been glad, Who shall be glad no more. _I sent my Soul through the Invisible_ _Some letter of that After-life to spell;_ _And by and by my Soul returned to me,_ _And answered, “I Myself am Heaven and Hell.”_ OMAR KHAYYÁM Moods and Thoughts. _The Old House._ [Illustration: text decoration] In through the porch and up the silent stair; Little is changed, I know so well the ways;-- Here, the dead came to meet me; it was there The dream was dreamed in unforgotten days. But who is this that hurries on before, A flitting shade the brooding shades among?-- She turned,--I saw her face,--O God, it wore The face I used to wear when I was young!