His Immortality

I

I SAW a dead man’s finer part Shining within each faithful heart Of those bereft. Then said I: “This must be His immortality.”

II

I looked there as the seasons wore, And still his soul continuously upbore Its life in theirs. But less its shine excelled Than when I first beheld.

III

His fellow-yearsmen passed, and then In later hearts I looked for him again; And found him—shrunk, alas! into a thin And spectral mannikin.

IV

Lastly I ask—now old and chill— If aught of him remain unperished still; And find, in me alone, a feeble spark, Dying amid the dark.

February 1899.