University of Virginia Library


276

[XXII
Henceforward I no longer shall be known]

Henceforward I no longer shall be known
Among you all, with whom I strove to dwell.
For all our loves were wholly pitiable:
I was a stranger, you were not my own.
And over all I was I ring a knell,
As a broad blasted landscape at sundown.
I would not have the flames break from my frown
Against you. I will go away,—Farewell!—
Not as the Spaniard and his argosies
Who ran greedily thro' the screaming sea
Into the sunset after enterprise,
But with dispassionate and quiet eyes
Watching my destiny depart from me
Like flushes in lotus after sunrise.
[1900]