Buried Self

Where side by side we sat, I sit alone,
But surely hear the absent voice, — as one
Who, playing, when the tune he plays is done,
Hears the spent music through the strings yet moan.
I rove, through places that my soul has known.
Like the sad ghost of some departed nun
Who comes between the moonrise and the sun.
To sit beside her monumental stone.

So by my buried self I take my seat,
And talk with other ghosts of vanished days.
And watch gray shadows through the twilight fleet,
And half expect to see the buried face
Of my dead self rise in the silent place,
To look at me with mournful eyes and sweet.