Loss
So here I pace where the sun is warm,
With no light weight dragging my arm,
Here in the sun we hoped would save—
Oh, sunny portal of the grave,
Florence, how well I know your trick!
Lay all the walls with sunshine thick
As paint; put colours in the air,
Strange southern trees upon your slopes;
And make your streets at Christmas fair
With flourish of roses; fill with hopes
And wonder all who gaze on you,
Loveliest town earth ever knew!
Then, presto ! take them unaware
With a blast from an open grave behind—
The icy blast of the wind^a knife
Thrust in one's back to take one's life.
Oh, 'tis an excellent, cunning snare.
For the flowers grow on and do not mind
(Who sees, if the petals be thickened and pocked?)
And the olive, and cypresses, and ilex grow on.
It is only the confident heart that is mocked,
It is only the delicate life that is gone!
How I hate it, all this mask!
Those beggars really seem to bask
In this mock sunshine; even I
Turn giddy in the blinding light.
It is all a pretence—it is all a lie—
Have I not seen my darling die?
Those mocking, leering, thin-faced apes.
Who twang their sharp guitars all night.
They are but thin unreal shapes.
The figures of a mirage-show.
They do not really live, I know ;
But once I heard them swear and fight,
"By God, the Assassin!" then they cried.
The mask fell off then. Yes, she died.
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