XI

If I might see you dead, Beloved—dead— Your false eyes closed forever to the light, Your false smile stilled upon my aching sight; If I might know that nevermore your head, Cruelly fair, could lie upon the bed Of my torn heart; if I beheld the night Free from your living thought—ah! if I might, Then could my desolate soul be comforted.

For this is worst of all the woes you gave— My heart may not forgive. The tired years go And leave the great love weeping for a grave, Scorned and unburied, 'neath the open sky. I could not love you less, to see you so. Loving you more, I might forgive—and die.