II.

The time is all so short. One week is much

To be without your deep and peaceful eyes,

Your soft and all-contenting cheek, the touch

Of well-caressing hands. O were we wise

We would not love too strongly, would not bind

Life into life so inextricably,

That the dumb body suffers with the mind

In a sad partnership this agony.

For death will come and swallow up us two,

You there, I here, and we shall lie apart,

Out of the houses and the woods we knew.

Then in the lonely grave, my dust-choked heart

Out of the dust will raise, if it can speak,

A threnody for this lost, lovely week.