Remembered Grief

Like some persistent ghost Griefs memory broods,
An awful Presence in his lonely room;
Sometimes it swathes him in tremendous gloom,
Then scourges him to Frenzy's maddest moods:
It bides by him in country solitudes;
It shouts through cities with the voice of doom;
At night beside his bed he sees it loom,
A mocking Fiend no subterfuge eludes.

The Grief itself has passed; and fair things hide
Its grave, — where grasses grow and wild flowers spring.
And soft winds come and go, and glad birds sing, —
But its stern shadow fareth at his side,
With pitiless eyes and wan lips whispering:
"Lo! I am with thee still, ahhough I died."