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A GHOST AT THE DANCING.
- A WIND‐SWEPT tulip‐bed—a colored cloud
- Of butterflies careering in the air—
- A many‐figured arras stirred to life,
- And merry unto midnight music dumb—
- So the dance whirls. Do any think of thee,
- Amiel, Amiel?
- Friends greet each other—countless rills of talk
- Meander round, scattering a spray of smiles.
- Surely—the news was false. One minute more
- And thou wilt stand here, tall and quiet‐eyed,
- Shakespearian beauty in they pensive face,
- Amiel, Amiel.
- Many here knew and loved thee—I nor loved,
- Scarce knew—yet in thy place a shadow glides,
- And a face shapes itself from empty air,
- Watching the dancers, grave and quiet‐eyed—
- Eyes that now see the angels evermore,
- Amiel, Amiel.
- On just such night as this, ’midst dance and song,
- I bade thee carelessly a light good by—
- “Good by”—saidst thou; “A happy journey home!”
- Was the unseen death‐angel at thy side,
- Mocking those words—(“A happy journey home,”
- Amiel, Amiel?
- Ay, we play fool’s play still; thou hast gone home.
- While these dance here, a mile hence o’er thy grave
- Drifts the deep New Year snow. The wondrous gate
- We spoke of, thou hast entered; I without
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- Grope ignorant still—thou dost its secrets know,
- Amiel, Amiel.
- What if, thus sitting where we sat last year,
- Thou camest, took’st up our broken thread of talk,
- And told’st of that new Home, which far I view,
- As children, wandering on through wintry fields,
- Mark on the hill the father’s window shine,
- Amiel, Amiel?
- No. We shall see thy pleasant face no more;
- Thy words on earth are ended. Yet thou livest;
- ’T is we who die.—I too, one day shall come,
- And, unseen, watch these shadows, quiet‐eyed—
- Then flit back to thy land, the living land,
- Amiel, Amiel.
