To My Books Who Perished by Fire

Yes, I have walked where gods were very fair

And Time was but a star below the noon,

Gone up and down the sky with unbound hair,

And home from going far, returned too soon.

Now they are ashes that were once to me

Wings, chariots, wind, journey and resting-place.

Death is too small an urn, and memory

Scarce deep enough to be their burial-vase.

Yet grass will lightly come on these sweet dead

And silence be their loudest requiem,

And while I mourn the ashes I have read,

The striding rain goes marching over them.

Men say that books are learning, but not life.

They were my lovers, who took me to wife.

GOD PITY THEM

God pity them who have no love

To lie beside and touch or kiss.

Rather be lost and lowly under,

Rather be dead than know not this.

God pity them and stop their tears

Who had a love and buried it.

Rather be darkness and no morning,

Than candle with the flame unlit.

God pity them who tarry after

Beside the gate where love went through.

Structure

25 lines · 4 stanzas