Because no more I tread earth's darkling way,
Deem me not dead, beloved, pitying me,
Nor on a new-made mound white flowers lay
And lavish longings on a memory.
Oh, sordid is the vision, short and dim,
That cannot pass the gray horizon's rim!
The gates of flesh through which but now I passed
Are swinging shut, yet would I, ere they close,
One flaming message pluck and downward cast
Upon the carrier-wind—one radiant rose
That may, perchance, the sweet of comfort bear
To them that walk the desert ways of care.
Call not this faltering step the long farewell,
Nor think its purport bitterness and tears,
Whose sullen echoes sound the bright day's knell;
But know that dirgeful doubts of all the years
I lay aside as trivial, outgrown things
The while an inward voice, exultant, sings.
