Fearing, we knew not what, to see.

Why creep the miners silently?

 From man to man, a whisper chills: "See, see, The sunken shaft of Thirty-one! The earth, a traitor to her trust, has fled And turned the dead unto the sun. 

The sunken shaft of Thirty-one!

And turned the dead unto the sun.

 "And here—O God of life and death! Thy work, Thine only, this!"  With foreheads bare, We knelt, and drew him, young and beautiful, Thirty years dead, into the air. 

Thine only, this!"  With foreheads bare,

Thirty years dead, into the air.

 Thus had he perished; buried from the day; By the swift poison caught and slain; By the kind poison unmarred, rendered fair Back to the upper earth again— 

By the swift poison caught and slain;

Back to the upper earth again—

 The warm and breathing earth that knew him not; And men and women wept to see— For kindred had he none among us all— How lonely even the dead may be. 

And men and women wept to see—

How lonely even the dead may be.

 We wept, I say; we wept who knew him not; But sharp, a tearless woman sprang From out the crowd (that quavering voice I knew), And terrible her cry outrang: 

But sharp, a tearless woman sprang

And terrible her cry outrang:

 "I pass, I pass ye all! Make way! Stand back! Mine is the place ye yield," she said. "He was my lover once—my own, my own; Oh, he was mine, and he is dead!" 

Mine is the place ye yield," she said.

Oh, he was mine, and he is dead!"

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