The one gone makes
All that remain seem strange and lonely now. 
She will not walk here again
In the blossoming lane:—­
And there’s a dead bough in every blossoming bough.

THE LAST TIME

For the last time,
The last, last time,
The last ... 
All those last times have I lived through again,
And every “last” renews itself in pain—­
Yes, each returns, and each returns in vain: 
You return not, the last remains the last,
And I remain to cast
Weak anchors of my love in shifting sands
Of faith:—­
The anchors drag, nothing I see save death.

Together we
Talked and were glad.  I could not see
That one black gesture menaced you and me! 
We kissed, and parted;
I left you, and was even merry-hearted.... 
And now my love is thwarted
That reaches back to you and searches round,
And dares not look on that harsh turfless mound.

And that last time
We walked together and the air acold
Hummed shrill around; the time that you
Walked heavily,
And I dared not to see,
Nor dared you then to speak of what must be. 
We knew not what the shut days would unfold—­
Nay, could not know till all the days were told.... 
But that last time we walked together, and
—­And walk no more together, nor clasp hand
In hand, just stiffly as we used to do.

Never in dreams,
O happy, never in stealing dreams
We meet; never again
I live by night the day’s slow-dying pain ... 
The last, last time,
The last—­
That time is past; yet in too-golden day
My heart goes from me whispering,
“Where are you—­you—­you—­you?”
And comes back easeless to an easeless breast. 
But at night I rest
Dreamless as derelict ships ride out to sea
Empty, and no bird even on the snapp’d mast
Pauses:  into oblivion her shadow’s cast;
Into the empty night goes lonely she,
And into sleep go—­oh, more lonely I.

YOU THAT WERE

You that were
Half my life ere life was mine;
You that on my shape the sign
Set of yours;
You that my young lips did kiss
When your kiss summed up my bliss.... 
      Ah, once more
You to kiss were all my bliss!

You whom I
Could forget—­strange, could forget
Even for days (ah, now the fret
Of my grief!);
You who loved me though forgot;
Welcomed still, reproaching not.... 
      Ah, that now
That forgetting were forgot!

You that now
On my shoulder as I go
Put your hand that wounds me so;
You that brush
Yet my lips with that one last
Kiss that bitters all things past.... 
      How shall I
Yet endure that kiss the last?

You that are
Where the feet of my blind grief
Find you not, nor find relief;
You that are
Where my thought flying after you
Broken falls and flies anew,
      Now you’re gone
My love accusing aches for you.