If death is naught but parting with a friend,
That voices cease be heard and faces seen,
A cruel wedge that wrenches man from man,
And leaves a memory as tangible as wind.
That taunts my mind, but flees my clasping hands
With fingers grasping for a time that’s been —
Its joys, its sighs, to watch as time ferments,
Then parting is with death a bosom kin.

To see a face, and then to see no more,
To hear a voice hence no more than a dream,
To feel a touch and know that I must yearn,
For that fair touch no more avails to me.
Parting, you are cruel upon my heart,
Not have I known a hand like yours so mean,
That fain would rob be of a thing so dear,
And leave it in that prison — memory.