The Love Sonnets of Proteus, To Manon, XIII: He dares not Die

Four hours by the clock ! How strange it is ! Four hours
Since love and life, the future and the past,
Died with the shutting of these silent doors,
And thought became to me one purpose vast.
I have not moved from where she sat. The cast
Of her fingers on this cushion lightly scores
Its surface still ; and still I hear the last
Tones of her laughter, and here lie her flowers.
Poor flowers ! The ugliness of grief has wrought
Your change already. No besotted bloom
Of a false dawn has lured you to base life.
You at the pinch were brave and trifled not,
Going ungrudging to our common doom.
And I ? Ah God ! I have not faced the knife !