Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/201

Rh Only the children from their play
 * Would pause the mournful tale to hear,

Shrinking in half-alarm away,
 * Or, step by step, would venture near

To touch with timid curious hands That strange wild man from other lands.

He sat beside the busy street,
 * There, where he last had seen her face;

And thronging memories, bitter-sweet,
 * Seemed yet to haunt the ancient place:

Her footfall ever floated near, Her voice was ever in his ear.

He sometimes, as the daylight waned
 * And evening mists began to roll,

In half-soliloquy complained
 * Of that black shadow on his soul,

And blindly fanned, with cruel care, The ashes of a vain despair.