Wilton Agnew Barrett

WHEN I heard you were dead,

I had little more than a startled word to give;

We had been too long apart,

And all the years I had been cold to you.

But the pity and pain of your leave-taking filled me with slow resentment.

Once I would have cared to make a song

About a flower you gave me—

An old rose shut in a book that is lost.

I was cruel to you,

And you had nothing better from the rest of the world;

That is what made me angry.

Well, we can love the dead in our own way

And not hurt them;

We can be very tender, knowing well

They will not come back to us.

I have thoughts for you now,

I have words of bereavement;

I see how lovely and rare you were

And cry out after you.

Where are you now, whom I played with on the sands when we both were young?

I remember your girl’s body stocky and strong,

Your little hard hand-clasp,

Your truthful eyes,

Your corn-pale dancing hair

Growing low on your small forehead.

I remember you, wet from the surf, catching ball like a rough boy.

I know death has you;

That very likely you were glad to die,

Going out lonely and in bitterness,

With your dreams all crunched to black dust …

Too strong for life, too honest, too friendly and too tender.

I hope, if the grave has not conspired to hold you,

You have forgotten about all that.

I hope, if I could come to an old sea-beach white and sunny,

Where spirits immortally human played,

I would find you there, O gray eyes—the laughing comrade of boys!