Your Last Drive

Here by the moorway you returned,     And saw the borough lights ahead     That lit your face all undiscerned     To be in a week the face of the dead,     And you told of the charm of that haloed view     That never again would beam on you.     And on your left you passed the spot     Where eight days later you were to lie,     And be spoken of as one who was not;     Beholding it with a cursory eye     As alien from you, though under its tree     You soon would halt everlastingly.     I drove not with you . . . Yet had I sat     At your side that eve I should not have seen     That the countenance I was glancing at     Had a last-time look in the flickering sheen,     Nor have read the writing upon your face,     "I go hence soon to my resting-place;     "You may miss me then. But I shall not know     How many times you visit me there,     Or what your thoughts are, or if you go     There never at all. And I shall not care.     Should you censure me I shall take no heed     And even your praises I shall not need."     True: never you'll know. And you will not mind.     But shall I then slight you because of such?     Dear ghost, in the past did you ever find     The thought "What profit?" move me much     Yet the fact indeed remains the same,     You are past love, praise, indifference, blame.     December 1912.