Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/99

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THE GHOST'S PETITION.
71
We are trees which have shed their leaves:
Our heads lie low there, but no tears flow there;
Only I grieve for my wife who grieves.

"I could rest if you would not moan
Hour after hour; I have no power
To shut my ears where I lie alone.

"I could rest if you would not cry;
But there's no sleeping while you sit weeping—
Watching, weeping so bitterly."—

"Woe's me! woe's me! for this I have heard.—
Oh, night of sorrow!—oh, black to-morrow!
Is it thus that you keep your word?

"O you who used so to shelter me
Warm from the least wind—why, now the east wind
Is warmer than you, whom I quake to see."

O my husband of flesh and blood,
For whom my mother I left, and brother,
And all I had, accounting it good,

"What do you do there, underground,
In the dark hollow? I'm fain to follow.
What do you do there?—what have you found?"—

"What I do there I must not tell:
But I have plenty: kind wife, content ye:
It is well with us—it is well.