LOVE.

The girl they loved walked in through the door
As dead as a valley in autumn,
And neither turned his head her way
Nor asked of her why she had sought him;
But they stared at the embers, and neither said,
‘She is standing behind us that is dead!’

Though a moment before one whispered, ‘My friend!’
And his friend, ‘My more than brother,
We alone shall see that face to the end
With the smile that she gave no other,’
Neither cried out, ‘Behind my chair
She stands and her hands are above my hair!’

Though one had said, ‘There is none but you,
Since Heaven has chosen and blest us,
And we alone in the skeleton hands
Could know the hands that caressed us,’
Neither said, ‘Welcome! neither sought
To take the hand that she stretched out.

They did not doubt that she was there
Like a perished sky in the autumn,
So still they grew, so cold their hearts——
Grudging the hope she had brought him,
Each waited as if turned to stone
To feel her hands, to taste alone
The triumph in his flesh and bone.

FRANK O'CONNOR

Irish Statesman 1926-04-24, p.176