Dear Emily, my tears would burn your page, br But for the fire-dry line that makes them burn— br Burning my eyes, my fingers, while I turn br Singly the words that crease my heart with age. br If I could make some tortured pilgrimage br Through words or Time. or the blank pain of Doom br And kneel before you as you found your tomb, br Then I might rise to face my heritage. br br br Yours was an empty upland solitude br Bleached to the powder of a dying name; br The mind, lost in a word’s lost certitude br That faded as the fading footsteps came br To trace an epilogue to words grown odd br In that hard argument which led to God.