Behind me a corpse paces, skeletal and pale.
Like shadow with me, wheresoe'er I tread;
Whether I rise or lie in stupor on my bed,
A living stock, with me, it ever, ever trails.
Round me it has raised iron bars into a jail,
Turned into a prison earth's unbounded spread.
Suffer I or no - it makes all feeling dead,
Snakelike, crushed my breast with a hundred steely coils.
My faithful companion, I love you tenderly,
Not time nor human malice can gnaw thee, make thee less,
Though art my envoy, - sole, thou speakst of happiness
Whether I sleep or grapple with reality,
I'll not leave thee and thou'lt not leave my misery...
O hail to thee, all hail to thee, my loneliness!
1915