Tales of the Unexpected

I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. *

They hail me as one living,
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold. **

photographs via Unexpected tales

* E. Barrett Browning, Sonnet XXVI, Sonnets from the Portoguese, 1850

** Thomas Hardy, The Dead Man Walking, Time's Laughingstock's and Other Verses, 1909