The Dead Man Walking

They hail me as one living,      But don't they know     That I have died of late years,      Untombed although?     I am but a shape that stands here,      A pulseless mould,     A pale past picture, screening      Ashes gone cold.     Not at a minute's warning,      Not in a loud hour,     For me ceased Time's enchantments      In hall and bower.     There was no tragic transit,      No catch of breath,     When silent seasons inched me      On to this death . . .     - A Troubadour-youth I rambled      With Life for lyre,     The beats of being raging      In me like fire.     But when I practised eyeing      The goal of men,     It iced me, and I perished      A little then.     When passed my friend, my kinsfolk      Through the Last Door,     And left me standing bleakly,      I died yet more;     And when my Love's heart kindled      In hate of me,     Wherefore I knew not, died I      One more degree.     And if when I died fully      I cannot say,     And changed into the corpse-thing      I am to-day;     Yet is it that, though whiling      The time somehow     In walking, talking, smiling,      I live not now.