V

She felt he was and was not there.

She woke: the babble of the stream

      Fell, and, without, the steady glare

Shrank one sick willow sere and small.

      The river-bed was dusty-white;

      And all the furnace of the light

Struck up against the blinding wall.

            She whisper'd, with a stifled moan

                  More inward than at night or morn,

            "Sweet Mother, let me not here alone

                  Live forgotten and die forlorn."