The Dead Man Walking

They hail me as one living,
    But don't they know
  That I have died of late years,
    Untombed although?
  I am but a shape that stands here,
    A pulseless mould,
  A pale past picture, screening
    Ashes gone cold.
  Not at a minute's warning,
   Not in a loud hour,
 For me ceased Time's enchantments
   In hall and bower.

 There was no tragic transit,
   No catch of breath,
 When silent seasons inched me
   On to this death….

 — A Troubadour-youth I rambled
   With Life for lyre,
 The beats of being raging
   In me like fire.

 But when I practised eyeing
   The goal of men,
 It iced me, and I perished
   A little then.

 When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
   Through the Last Door,
 And left me standing bleakly,
   I died yet more;

 And when my Love's heart kindled
   In hate of me,
 Wherefore I knew not, died I
   One more degree.

 And if when I died fully
   I cannot say,
 And changed into the corpse-thing
   I am to-day,

 Yet is it that, though whiling
   The time somehow
 In walking, talking, smiling,
   I live not now.