Beyond the Haze
A Winter Ramble Reverie
The road was straight, the afternoon was gray,
The frost hung listening in the silent air;
On either hand the rimy fields were bare;
Beneath my feet unrolled the long, white way,
Drear as my heart, and brightened by no ray
From the wide winter sun, whose disc reclined
In distant copper sullenness behind
The broken network of the western hedge—
A crimson blot upon the fading day.
Three travellers went before me—one alone—
Then two together, who their fingers nursed
Deep in their pockets; and I watched the first
Lapse in the curtain the slow haze had thrown
Across the vista which had been my own.
Next vanished the chill comrades, blotted out
Like him they followed, but I did not doubt
That there beyond the haze the travellers
Walked in the fashion that my sight had known.
Only “beyond the haze;” oh, sweet belief!
That this is also Death; that those we’ve kissed
Between our sobs, are just “beyond the mist;”
An easy thought to juggle with to grief!
The gulf seems measureless, and Death a thief.
Can we, who were so high, and are so low,
So clothed in love, who now in tatters go,
Echo serenely, “Just beyond the haze,”
And of a sudden find a trite relief?
—Cornhill Magazine.