Wessex Poems and Other Verses: Thoughts of Phena

Thoughts of Phena

AT NEWS OF HER DEATH

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      Not a line of her writing have I,
         Not a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
      I may picture her there;
   And in vain do I urge my unsight
      To conceive my lost prize
At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light,
      And with laughter her eyes.
      What scenes spread around her last days,
         Sad, shining, or dim?
Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways
      With an aureate nimb?
   Or did life-light decline from her years,
      And mischances control
Her full day-star; unease, or regret, or forebodings, or fears
      Disennoble her soul?
      Thus I do but the phantom retain
         Of the maiden of yore
As my relic; yet haply the best of her--fined in my brain
      It maybe the more
   That no line of her writing have I,
      Nor a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
      I may picture her there.
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March 1890.

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