The mantle of a vast exceeding peace

The mantle of a vast exceeding peace
Over the lonely wandering poet fell:
The noises of the worldly war did cease,
And all was well.

Some understood him better, now that death
Had folded round him its embrace secure,
And breathed upon him with its awful breath,
Most sweet, most pure.

The women who had followed through wild ways
With love and longing in most tender hands,
Brought him his roses and his wreath of bays,
Plucked in lone lands.

But over him fell sweet unbroken sleep,
And rest divine that nought could change or mar;
One woman watched his grave with great grand deep
Gaze like a star.

Nought moved her from his grave. His other queens
Sought other pleasures — bought and sold and slept
But still, where over him the grey stone leans,
This woman wept,

They found her there one summer morning dead
Beneath the solemn marriage-sealing sun,
To his live endless deathless spirit wed, —
So these Were one.