In the Moonlight

'O lonely workman, standing there

In a dream, why do you stare and stare

At her grave, as no other grave there were?

'If your great gaunt eyes so importune

Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon

Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!'

'Why, fool, it is what I would rather see

Than all the living folk there be;

But alas, there is no such joy for me!'

'Ah -- she was one you loved, no doubt,

Through good and evil, through rain and drought,

And when she passed, all your sun went out?

'Nay: she was the woman I did not love,

Whom all the others were ranked above,

Whom during her life I thought nothing of.'