White robes, to garb remorsefully     

       A Better Life—which may not be     

       Or, when it comes, may seal your doom.     

  

       Thus, side by side, through all the year,     

       Yet just apart, you wake and hear,     

       As men on land the ocean's strum,     

       Your Dead World's hushed delirium     

       Which, sounding distant, yet is near.     

  

       So near that, could he lean aside,     

       The bridegroom well might touch his bride     

       And reach her flesh, which once was fair,     

       And, slow across the pale lips where     

       He kissed her, feel his fingers glide.     

  

       So distant, that he can but weep     

       Whene'er she moans his name in sleep:     

       A cold-grown star, with light all spent,     

       She gropes the abyssmal firmament.     

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