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1859–1907

TO A CHILD.

Francis Thompson

Whenas my life shall time with funeral tread The heavy death-drum of the beaten hours, Following, sole mourner, mine own manhood dead, Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;

When I you love am no more I you love, But go with unsubservient feet, behold Your dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove;— A new man, mock-ed with misname of old;

When shamed Love keep his ruined lodging, elf! When, ceremented in mouldering memory, Myself is hears-ed underneath myself, And I am but the monument of me: -

O to that tomb be tender then, which bears Only the name of him it sepulchres!

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