Your Last Drive
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ere by the moorway you returned,And saw the borough lights aheadThat lit your face--all undiscernedTo be in a week the face of the dead,And you told of the charm of that haloed viewThat never again would beam on you. And on your left you passed the spotWhere eight days later you were to lie,And be spoken of as one who was not;Beholding it with a cursory eyeAs alien from you, though under its treeYou soon would halt everlastingly. I drove not with you . . . Yet had I satAt your side that eve I should not have seenThat the countenance I was glancing atHad a last-time look in the flickering sheen,Nor have read the writing upon your face,"I go hence soon to my resting-place; "You may miss me then. But I shall not knowHow many times you visit me there,Or what your thoughts are, or if you goThere never at all. And I shall not care.Should you censure me I shall take no heedAnd even your praises I shall not need." True: never you'll know. And you will not mind.But shall I then slight you because of such?Dear ghost, in the past did you ever findThe thought "What profit?" move me muchYet the fact indeed remains the same,You are past love, praise, indifference, blame.
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