To J. L.

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.