Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/140



LONE, alone in the still, deserted room,

He knew that she lay dead—that hope was past,

Knew she had left him in her bloom—

She, of his joys, the last!

Yet warm and tender as the day's caress,

There lingered in his breaking heart the light

She wore for him, the loveliness

Death's shadow could not blight;

And in the silence feeling her so near—

Though wrapped from him in strange oblivion,

Longing that life should hold her dear

When he, too, should be gone,—

He strengthened for her sake reluctant breath,

And put away the dread of waiting years,

And wrote the story of her death,

And sealed it with his tears. . ..