I have a feeling that this poem was on R K Narayan's mind when he wrote one of his best ( and partly autobiographical) novels "The English Teacher" where he describes his loving wife's death by typhoid...
R K Narayan:
“There are no more surprises and shocks in life, so that I watch the flame without agitation. For me the greatest reality is this and nothing else…Nothing else will worry or interest me in life hereafter.”
(The English Teacher, 1946)
