All my life long I shall see moonlight on the fern And the black trunks of trees. Only the hair Of any woman can belong to God. The stalks are cruelly broken where we trod, There had been violets there, I shall not care As I used to do when I see the bracken burn. BESIDE THE BED Someone has shut the shining eyes, straightened and folded The wandering hands quietly covering the unquiet breast: So, smoothed and silenced you lie, like a child, not again to be questioned or scolded; But, for you, not one of us believes that this is rest. Not so to close the windows down can cloud and deaden The blue beyond: or to screen the wavering flame subdue its breath: Why, if I lay my cheek to your cheek, your grey lips, like dawn, would quiver and redden, Breaking into the old, odd smile at this fraud of death. Because all night you have not turned to us or spoken It is time for you to wake; your dreams were never very deep: I, for one, have seen the thin, bright, twisted threads of them dimmed suddenly and broken, This is only a most piteous pretence of sleep! IN NUNHEAD CEMETERY It is the clay that makes the earth stick to his spade; He fills in holes like this year after year; The others have gone; they were tired, and half afraid, But I would rather be standing here; There is nowhere else to go. I have seen this place From the windows of the train that’s going past Against the sky. This is rain on my face-- It was raining here when I saw it last. There is something horrible about a flower; This, broken in my hand, is one of those He threw in just now: it will not live another hour; There are thousands more: you do not miss a rose. One of the children hanging about Pointed at the whole dreadful heap and smiled This morning, after THAT was carried out; There is something terrible about a child. We were like children, last week, in the Strand; That was the day you laughed at me Because I tried to make you understand The cheap, stale chap I used to be Before I saw the things you made me see. This is not a real place; perhaps by-and-by I shall wake--I am getting drenched with all this rain: To-morrow I will tell you about the eyes of the Crystal Palace train Looking down on us, and you will laugh and I shall see what you see again.