To J. L.

Florence Kiper Frank

Often within the house where we have met
You are an aching presence and a pain,
The cruel obsession of a tortured brain
With only you and loss of you beset.
Each room where you have moved is a regret;
In every spot some self of you is slain.
And "Oh," I question, "must he die again,
And die a thousand deaths till I forget!"

But when I plunge into the moving street,
Into the vital sunlight and keen air,
When face to face and life to life I meet
My living brothers, all the old despair
Falls from me; in the faces that I greet,
And in the quickened heart-throbs, you are there.