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 Ere Breath Had Fled. She Said: "'Tis Seven Years Since I Died: Few Now Remember Me; My Husband Clasps Another Bride; My Children'S Love Has 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!