Last Words
Dead! all’s done with!
—R. Browning.
These blossoms that I bring,
This song that here I sing,
These tears that now I shed,
I give unto the dead.
There is no more to be done,
Nothing beneath the sun,
All the long ages through,
Nothing—by me for you.
The tale is told to the end;
This, ev’n, I may not know—
If we were friend and friend,
If we were foe and foe.
All’s done with utterly,
All’s done with. Death to me
Was ever Death indeed;
To me no kindly creed
Consolatory was given.
You were of earth, not Heaven. . .
This dreary day, things seem
Vain shadows in a dream,
Or some strange, pictured show;
And mine own tears that flow,
My hidden tears that fall,
The vainest of them all.
