The poem
They hail me as one living, But don't they know That I have died of late years, Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here, A pulseless mould, A pale past picture, screening Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute's warning, Not in a loud hour, For me ceased Time's enchantments In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit, No catch of breath, When silent seasons inched me On to this death ...
-- A Troubadour-youth I rambled With Life for lyre, The beats of being raging In me like fire.
But when I practised eyeing The goal of men, It iced me, and I perished A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk, Through the Last Door, And left me standing bleakly, I died yet more;
And when my Love's heart kindled In hate of me, Wherefore I knew not, died I One more degree.
And if when I died fully I cannot say, And changed into the corpse-thing I am to-day,
Yet is it that, though whiling The time somehow In walking, talking, smiling, I live not now.