Larranagas! Thank you, thank you! Not a knife. I never use one — I've the right thing on my watch-chain Which some fool or other gave me —
Takes the end off in a second — Sharp as life bites off our pleasures. See! The soft wreath upward curling, Gray as mists in leaf-strewn hollows;
Blue as skies in mild October; Vague, elusive as delight is. Ah! what shapes the smoke-wreaths grow to When they're looked at by a dreamer!
Waves that moan — cold, gray, and curling, On a shore where gray rocks break them; Skies where gray and blue are blended As our life blends joy and sorrow.
Angel wings, and smoke of battles, Lines of beauty, curved perfection! Half-shut eyes see many marvels; Gazed at through one's half-closed lashes
Wreaths of smoke take shapes uncanny — Beckoning hands and warning fingers — But the gray cloud always somehow Ends by looking like a woman.
Like a woman tall and slender, Gowned in gray, with eyes like twilight, Soft, and dreamy, and delicious. Through my half-shut eyes I see her —
Through my half-dead life am conscious Of her pure, perpetual presence. Then the gray wreaths spread out broadly Till they make a level landscape,
Toneless, dull, and very rainy — And an open grave — I saw it. Through the rain I heard the falling Of the tears the heart sheds inly.
Oh, I saw it! I remember Leafless branches, dripping, dripping, Through a chill not born of Autumn. To that grave tends all my dreaming —
Oh, I saw it, I remember... By that grave all dreaming ended!
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