IN THE MOONLIGHT

 “O lonely workman, standing there

In a dream, why do you stare and stare

At her grave, as no other grave there were?

“If your great gaunt eyes so importune

              Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon,         

Maybe you’ll raise her phantom soon!”

“Why, fool, it is what I would rather see

Than all the living folk there be;

But alas, there is no such joy for me!”

“Ah - she was one you loved, no doubt,         

  Through good and evil, through rain and drought,

  And when she passed, all your sun went out?”

“Nay: she was the woman I did not love,

 Whom all the others were ranked above,

Whom during her life I thought nothing of.”     

143

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