The shadow still the same;

And on my heavy eyelids

My anguish hangs like shame.

11.

Alas for her that met me,

That heard me softly call,

Came glimmering thro' the laurels

At the quiet evenfall,

In the garden by the turrets

Of the old manorial hall.

12.

Would the happy spirit descend, From the realms of light and song,

In the chamber or the street,

As she looks among the blest,
Should I fear to greet my friend

Or to say 'forgive the wrong,'

Or to ask her, 'take me, sweet,

To the regions of thy rest'?

13.

But the broad light glares and beats,

And the shadow flits and fleets

And will not let me be;

And I loathe the squares and streets,

And the faces that one meets,

Hearts with no love for me:

Always I long to creep

Into some still cavern deep,

There to weep, and weep, and weep

My whole soul out to thee.

And my heart is a handful of dust,

And the wheels go over my head,

And my bones are shaken with pain,

For into a shallow grave they are thrust,

Only a yard beneath the street,

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat,

The hoofs of the horses beat,

Beat into my scalp and my brain,

With never an end to the stream of passing feet,

Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying,

Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter,

And here beneath it is all as bad,

For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so;

To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad?

But up and down and to and fro,

Ever about me the dead men go;

And then to hear a dead man chatter

Is enough to drive one mad.

2.

Wretchedest age, since Time began

They cannot even bury a man;

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that are gone,

Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read;

It is that which makes us loud in the world of the

dead;

There is none that does his work, not one;

A touch of their office might have sufficed,

But the churchmen fain would kill their church,

As the churches have kill'd their Christ.

3.

See, there is one of us sobbing,

No limit to his distress;

And another, a lord of all things, praying

To his own great self, as I guess;

And another, a statesman there, betraying

His party-secret, fool, to the press ;

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing

The case of his patient — all for what?

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head,

And wheedle a world that loves him not,

For it is but a world of the dead.

4.

Nothing but idiot gabble!

For the prophecy given of old

And then not understood,

Has come to pass as foretold;

Not let any man think for the public good,