Page:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu/89

 XXII

OW strangely did you break upon

That sudden land beyond life's veil?

A moment did your spirit fail,

As mine when first I knew you gone

The last dark journey, saw your clay

So vacant, loveless, borne away,

And the features, that I loved to scan,

The same but of another man

Unknown—a bright dream all undone.

What stranger did the bearers lift

In their soiled stretcher lightly laid

Where I had seen you fall adrift

From life—had time to be afraid?

—That, all of you that had breathed and moved,

That, none of you that lived and loved,

A hush that so I seemed to hate

For claiming still its lost inmate,

A false pretence, a solid shade.

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