"I shall come back" by Dorothy Parker

[marnanel]

[death]

I SHALL COME BACK
by Dorothy Parker
 

I shall come back without fanfaronade
of wailing wind and graveyard panoply;

but, trembling, slip from cool Eternity —
a mild and most bewildered little shade.
I shall not make sepulchral midnight raid,
but softly come where I had longed to be
in April twilight's unsung melody,
and I, not you, shall be the one afraid.
Strange, that from lovely dreamings of the dead
I shall come back to you, who hurt me most.
You may not feel my hand upon your head,
I'll be so new and inexpert a ghost.
Perhaps you will not know that I am near —
and that will break my ghostly heart, my dear.