To-morrow.... And already I feel The harsh arms of ivy-coils loosening Like a dead man’s embrace, I feel the cool worms from my hair Rain like dew, And the soft-muzzled moles boring deeper, Down after the old dead that stir not, Or just grumble: “Don’t wake me,” and turn The nether side of their skulls to their head-slab.... While I ... I their one-year neighbour, Thrusting up like a willow in spring, From my hair Untwine the thick grass-hair carefully, Unbind the cool roots from my lids, Straining up, straining up with thin hands, Scattering the earth like a cloud, And stopping my ears from the cry, Lower down, Persistent, like a sick child’s wail, The cry of the girl just below me: “Don’t go, don’t go ...” the poor coward! (ii) How light the air is! I’m dizzy ... my feet fly up ... And this mad confusion of things topsy-turvey, With the friendly comprehensible roots all hidden, In this queer world where one can’t see how things happen, But only what they become.... Was it always so queer and inexplicable? Yes, but the fresh smell of things ... Are these apples in the wet grass, I wonder? Sweet, sweet, sweet, the smell of the living! And the far-off sky, and the stars, And the quiet spaces between, So that one can float and fly ... Why used we only to walk? This is the gate—and the latch still unmended! Yet how often I told him.... Ah, the scent of my box-border! And a late clove-pink still unfrozen. It’s what they call a “mild November” ... I knew that, below there, by the way the roots kept pushing, But I’d forgotten how tender it was on the earth ... So quickly the dead forget! And the living? I think, after all, they remember, With everything about them so unchanged, And no leaden loam on their eyes. Yes, surely, I know _he_ remembers; Whenever he touches the broken latch, He thinks: “How often she asked me, And how careless I was not to mend it!” And smiles and sighs; then recalls How we planted the box-border together, Knee to knee in the wet, one November ... And the clove-pinks— Here is the window. They’ve put the green lamp on the table, Where his books lie, heaped as of old— Ah, thank God for the old disorder! How I used to hate it, and now— Now I could kiss the dust on the mirror, the pipe-ashes Over everything—all the old mess That no strange hand interferes with ... Bless him for that! (iij)