My sobbing, at the sunset hour ,
Half-rhymes with distant pistol-shots
Re-echoing from chimney-pots
And the round, nearby water tower.
Lacrimae rerum,
and their thin
Counterparts in my sorrow, cry
Not for my loss : that leaves a dry
And silent emptiness within ,
A hall deserted even by
Pain , which is presence, after all ,
Of dark, intruding waves which crawl
In at the hand or at the eye .
Absence is presence , then, we learn ,
Joined by the middle term of pain .
You gone , only such jokes remain.
Et excrucior.
And I burn .
A TALK IN THE PARK
"With thee conversing I forget
All time ," Eve said to him , and so
Would I to you: but time shall mow
The living grass where we are met
In the sparse park amid the hiss
Of crawling traffic, where your talk
Leads me for a brief space to walk
In bowers of artificial bliss .
Unchanging winds blow through the leaves
(Lips that can whisper but not kiss) ;
Yet time remembers us in this :
Our words are reaped and bound in sheaves
