I shall go back again to the bleak shore And build a little shanty on the sand, In such a way that the extremest band Of brittle seaweed will escape my door But by a yard or two; and nevermore Shall I return to take you by the hand; I shall be gone to what I understand, And happier than I ever was before. The love that stood a moment in your eyes, The words that lay a moment on your tongue, Are one with all that in a moment dies, A little under-said and over-sung. But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies Unchanged from what they were when I was young. IV-XI SAY WHAT YOU WILL Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find The roots of last year’s roses in my breast; I am as surely riper in my mind As if the fruit stood in the stalls confessed. Laugh at the unshed leaf, say what you will, Call me in all things what I was before, A flutterer in the wind, a woman still; I tell you I am what I was and more. My branches weigh me down, frost cleans the air, My sky is black with small birds bearing south; Say what you will, confuse me with fine care, Put by my word as but an April truth-- Autumn is no less on me that a rose Hugs the brown bough and sighs before it goes. IV-XII WHAT’S THIS OF DEATH What’s this of death, from you who never will die? Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay, The thumb that set the hollow just that way In your full throat and lidded the long eye So roundly from the forehead, will let lie Broken, forgotten, under foot some day Your unimpeachable body, and so slay The work he most had been remembered by? I tell you this: whatever of dust to dust Goes down, whatever of ashes may return To its essential self in its own season, Loveliness such as yours will not be lost, But, cast in bronze upon his very urn, Make known him Master, and for what good reason. IV-XIII I SEE SO CLEARLY I see so clearly now my similar years Repeat each other, shod in rusty black, Like one hack following another hack In meaningless procession, dry of tears, Driven empty, lest the noses sharp as shears Of gutter-urchins at a hearse’s back Should sniff a man died friendless, and attack With silly scorn his deaf triumphant ears; I see so clearly how my life must run One year behind another year until At length these bones that leap into the sun Are lowered into the gravel, and lie still, I would at times the funeral were done And I abandoned on the ultimate hill. IV-XIV YOUR FACE IS LIKE A CHAMBER