They hail me as one living,

   But don’t they know

That I have died of late years,

   Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,

   A pulseless mould,

A pale past picture, screening

   Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute’s warning,

   Not in a loud hour,

For me ceased Time’s enchantments

   In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,

   No catch of breath,

When silent seasons inched me

   On to this death . . .

—A Troubadour-youth I rambled

   With Life for lyre,

The beats of being raging

   In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing

   The goal of men,

It iced me, and I perished

   A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk

   Through the Last Door,

And left me standing bleakly,

   I died yet more;

And when my Love’s heart kindled

   In hate of me,

Wherefore I knew not, died I

   One more degree.

And if when I died fully

   I cannot say,

And changed into the corpse-thing

   I am to-day;

Yet is it that, though whiling

   The time somehow

In walking, talking, smiling,

   I live not now.