For The Body At Best

What Should I Be But Just What I Am?

We Were So Wholly One I Had Not Thought That We Could Die Apart. I Had Not Thought That I Could Move,—and You Be Stiff And Still! That I Could Speak,—and You Perforce Be Dumb! I Think Our Heart-strings Were, Like Warp And Woof In Some Firm Fabric, Woven In And Out; Your Golden Filaments In Fair Design Across My Duller Fibre.

Listen, Children: Your Father Is Dead. From His Old Coats I'll Make You Little Jackets; I'll Make You Little Trousers From His Old Pants. There'll Be In His Pockets Things He Used To Put There, Keys And Pennies Covered With Tobacco; Dan Shall Have The Pennies To Save In His Bank; Anne Shall Have The Keys To Make A Pretty Noise With. Life Must Go On, Though Good Men Die; Anne, Eat Your Breakfast; Dan, Take Your Medicine; Life Must Go On; I Forget Just Why.

I Have Loved Badly, Loved The Great Too Soon, Withdrawn My Words Too Late; And Eaten In An Echoing Hall Alone And From A Chipped Plate The Words That I Withdrew Too Late.

Oh, Friend, Forget Not, When You Fain Would Note In Me A Beauty That Was Never Mine, How First You Knew Me In A Book I Wrote, How First You Loved Me For A Written Line.