White soul, too white for us who work with clay,
Sweet mistress of the gentle flowers and birds,
Harshly compelled to speak your loving words
So long but to the subtle beasts of prey:
I was your earthly husband for a day,
Too strange a nature for an eye so blue;
And yet so honest was my love to you,
I gave you something ere you went away. . . .

I've set no stone upon the grave out there,
Whither in all my years I shall not go;
But, conquering pain, and pity, and despair,
I bind these leaves with solemn hands and slow:
My poems — all my sacred best of life —
Be yours forever, O my wife, my wife!