CORTEGE
I keep a scant half-dozen words he said,
And every now and then I lose his name;
He may be living or he may be dead,
But I must have him with me all the same.
I knew it, and I knew it all along,
And felt it once or twice, or thought I did ;
But only as a glad man feels a song
That sounds around a stranger's coffin lid.
I knew it, and he knew it, I believe,
But silence held us alien to the end;
And I have now no magic to retrieve
That year, to stop that hunger for a friend.
CORTEGE
Four o'clock this afternoon,
Fifteen hundred miles away :
So it goes, the crazy tune,
So it pounds and hums all day
Four o'clock this afternoon,
Earth will hide them far away:
Best they go to go so soon,
Best for them the grave to-day.
Had she gone but half so soon,
Half the world had passed away.
Four o'clock this afternoon,
Best for them they go to-day.
Four o'clock this afternoon
Love will hide them deep, they say;
Love that made the grave so soon,
Fifteen hundred miles away.
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