“I Rose Up as My Custom Is”
I rose up as my custom isOn the eve of All-Souls’ day,And left my grave for an hour or soTo call on those I used to knowBefore I passed away.
I visited my former LoveAs she lay by her husband’s side;I asked her if life pleased her, nowShe was rid of a poet wrung in brow,And crazed with the ills he eyed;
Who used to drag her here and thereWherever his fancies led,And point out pale phantasmal things,And talk of vain vague purposingsThat she discredited.
She was quite civil, and replied,“Old comrade, is that you?Well, on the whole, I like my life.—I know I swore I’d be no wife,But what was I to do?
“You see, of all men for my sexA poet is the worst;Women are practical, and theyCrave the wherewith to pay their way,And slake their social thirst.
“You were a poet—quite the idealThat we all love awhile:But look at this man snoring here—He’s no romantic chanticleer,Yet keeps me in good style.
“He makes no quest into my thoughts,But a poet wants to knowWhat one has felt from earliest days,Why one thought not in other ways,And one’s Loves of long ago.”
Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost;The nightmares neighed from their stallsThe vampires screeched, the harpies flew,And under the dim dawn I withdrewTo Death’s inviolate halls.
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