THE WOMAN I MET
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STRANGER, I threaded sunken-heartedA lamp-lit crowd;And anon there passed me a soul departed,Who mutely bowed.In my far-off youthful years I had met her,Full-pulsed; but now, no more life’s debtor,Onward she slidIn a shroud that furs half-hid. “Why do you trouble me, dead woman,Trouble me;You whom I knew when warm and human?—How it beThat you quitted earth and are yet upon itIs, to any who ponder on it,Past being read!”“Still, it is so,” she said. “These were my haunts in my olden sprightlyHours of breath;Here I went tempting frail youth nightlyTo their death;But you deemed me chaste—me, a tinselled sinner!How thought you one with pureness in herCould pace this streetEyeing some man to greet? “Well; your very simplicity made me love youMid such town dross,Till I set not Heaven itself above you,Who grew my Cross;For you’d only nod, despite how I sighed for you;So you tortured me, who fain would have died for you!—What I suffered thenWould have paid for the sins of ten! “Thus went the days. I feared you despised meTo fling me a nodEach time, no more: till love chastised meAs with a rodThat a fresh bland boy of no assuranceShould fire me with passion beyond endurance,While others allI hated, and loathed their call. “I said: ‘It is his mother’s spiritHovering aroundTo shield him, maybe!’ I used to fear it,As still I foundMy beauty left no least impression,And remnants of pride withheld confessionOf my true tradeBy speaking; so I delayed. “I said: ‘Perhaps with a costly flowerHe’ll be beguiled.’I held it, in passing you one late hour,To your face: you smiled,Keeping step with the throng; though you did not see thereA single one that rivalled me there! . . .Well: it’s all past.I died in the Lock at last.” So walked the dead and I togetherThe quick among,Elbowing our kind of every featherSlowly and long;Yea, long and slowly. That a phantom should stalk thereWith me seemed nothing strange, and talk thereThat winter nightBy flaming jets of light. She showed me Juans who feared their call-time,Guessing their lot;She showed me her sort that cursed their fall-time,And that did not.Till suddenly murmured she: “Now, tell me,Why asked you never, ere death befell me,To have my love,Much as I dreamt thereof?” I could not answer. And she, well weetingAll in my heart,Said: “God your guardian kept our fleetingForms apart!”Sighing and drawing her furs around herOver the shroud that tightly bound her,With wafts as from clayShe turned and thinned away.
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