Two Thoughts of Death

Her heart that loved me once is rottenness
Now and corruption; and her Life is dead

That was to have been one with mine, she said.
The earth must lie with such a cruel stress
On eyes whereon the white lids used to press;

Foul worms fill up her mouth so sweet and red;
Foul worms are underneath her graceful head;
Yet these, being born of her from nothingness,
These worms are certainly flesh of her flesh. --

How is it that the grass is rank and green
And the dew-dropping rose is brave and fresh
Above what was so sweeter far than they?
Even as her beauty hath passed quite away,

Theirs too shall be as though it had not been.
II

So I said underneath the dusky trees:
But, because still I loved her memory,
I stooped to pluck a pale anemone,

And lo my hand lighted upon heartsease
Not fully blown: while with new life from these
Fluttered a starry moth that rapidly
Rose toward the sun: sunlighted flashed on me

Its wings that seemed to throb like heart-pulses.
Far far away it flew, far out of sight, --
From earth and flowers of earth it passed away
As though it flew straight up into the light.

Then my heart answered me: Thou fool, to say
That she is dead whose night is turned to day,
And no more shall her day turn back to night.