XIV

Father! when I have passed, with deathly swoon, Into the ghost-world, immaterial, dim, O may nor time nor circumstance dislimn My image from thy memory, as noon Steals from the fainting bloom the cooling dew! Like flower, itself completing bud and bell, In lonely thicket, be thy sorrow true, And in expression secret. Worse than hell To see the grave hypocrisy—to hear The crocodilian sighs of summer friends Outraging grief’s assuasive, holy ends! But thou art faithful, father, and sincere; And in thy brain the love of me shall dwell Like the memorial music in the curved sea-shell.