Dead Selves

How many of my selves are dead?         The ghosts of many haunt me: Lo,     The baby in the tiny bed     With rockers on, is blanketed         And sleeping in the long ago;     And so I ask, with shaking head,     How many of my selves are dead?     A little face with drowsy eyes         And lisping lips comes mistily     From out the faded past, and tries     The prayers a mother breathed with sighs         Of anxious care in teaching me;     But face and form and prayers have fled -     How many of my selves are dead?     The little naked feet that slipped         In truant paths, and led the way     Through dead'ning pasture-lands, and tripped     O'er tangled poison-vines, and dipped         In streams forbidden - where are they?     In vain I listen for their tread -     How many of my selves are dead?     The awkward boy the teacher caught         Inditing letters filled with love,     Who was compelled, for all he fought,     To read aloud each tender thought         Of "Sugar Lump" and "Turtle Dove."     I wonder where he hides his head -     How many of my selves are dead?     The earnest features of a youth         With manly fringe on lip and chin,     With eager tongue to tell the truth,     To offer love and life, forsooth,         So brave was he to woo and win;     A prouder man was never wed -     How many of my selves are dead?     The great, strong hands so all-inclined         To welcome toil, or smooth the care     From mother-brows, or quick to find     A leisure-scrap of any kind,         To toss the baby in the air,     Or clap at babbling things it said -     How many of my selves are dead?     The pact of brawn and scheming brain -         Conspiring in the plots of wealth,     Still delving, till the lengthened chain,     Unwindlassed in the mines of gain,         Recoils with dregs of ruined health     And pain and poverty instead -     How many of my selves are dead?     The faltering step, the faded hair -         Head, heart and soul, all echoing     With maundering fancies that declare     That life and love were never there,         Nor ever joy in anything,     Nor wounded heart that ever bled -     How many of my selves are dead?     So many of my selves are dead,         That, bending here above the brink     Of my last grave, with dizzy head,     I find my spirit comforted,         For all the idle things I think:     It can but be a peaceful bed,     Since all my other selves are dead.