Men and Women (Browning)/Volume 2/After
For other versions of this work, see After.
AFTER.
Take the cloak from his face, and at firstLet the corpse do its worst.
How he lies in his rights of a man!Death has done all death can.And absorbed in the new life he leads,He recks not, he heedsNor his wrong nor my vengeance—both strikeOn his senses alike,And are lost in the solemn and strangeSurprise of the change. Ha, what avails death to eraseHis offence, my disgrace?I would we were boys as of oldIn the field, by the fold—His outrage, God's patience, man's scornWere so easily borne.
I stand here now, he lies in his place—Cover the face.