A Life-Tomb
Arthur O'Shaughnessy
1844 to 1881
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The house is haunted and rife
With Her touch panel and door
And her footfalls under the floor;
the house is filled with gloom:
—Is She here in my life?
Am I here alive in her tomb?—
Ah fain am I still to track
And walk along the ways
Sown with flowers by her feet;
And to gather, following back,
All the purple nights days
She slew passing; or, half sweet,
To sit dull eyes cast
On slowly dying embers
Of things heart remembers
Right fair in the heart’s past,
—Till tones, that seem to start
From the shadows in the room,
Move round about the heart,
And a love-glow fills gloom;
And her soul seems to look out
As dim and distant eyes,
And a shade of lips pout
With some remnant of her sighs.
And often too, in the night,
The flame in famished eyes
Re-kindles old delight
At some dream-sight of her;
The heart tremulous stir
Lives a moment and then dies.