Upon a noon I pilgrimed through
  A pasture, mile by mile,
Unto the place where I last saw
  My dead Love's living smile.

And sorrowing I lay me down
  Upon the heated sod:
It seemed as if my body pressed
  The very ground she trod.
 
I lay, and thought; and in a trance
  She came and stood me by -- 
The same, even to the marvellous ray
  That used to light her eye.
 
"You draw me, and I come to you,
  My faithful one," she said,
In voice that had the moving tone
  It bore in maidenhead.
 
She said: "'Tis seven years since I died:
  Few now remember me;
My husband clasps another bride;
  My children mothers she.
 
My brethren, sisters, and my friends
  Care not to meet my sprite:
Who prized me most I did not know
  Till I passed down from sight."
 
I said: "My days are lonely here;
  I need thy smile alway:
I'll use this night my ball or blade,
  And join thee ere the day."
 
A tremor stirred her tender lips,
  Which parted to dissuade:
"That cannot be, O friend," she cried;
  "Think, I am but a Shade!
 
"A Shade but in its mindful ones
  Has immortality;
By living, me you keep alive,
  By dying you slay me.
 
"In you resides my single power
  Of sweet continuance here;
On your fidelity I count
  Through many a coming year."
 
 -- I started through me at her plight,
  So suddenly confessed:
Dismissing late distaste for life,
  I craved its bleak unrest.
 
"I will not die, my One of all! -- 
  To lengthen out thy days
I'll guard me from minutest harms
  That may invest my ways!"
 
She smiled and went. Since then she comes
  Oft when her birth-moon climbs,
Or at the seasons' ingresses
  Or anniversary times;
 
But grows my grief. When I surcease,
  Through whom alone lives she,
Ceases my Love, her words, her ways,
  Never again to be!