Classic Poem

The heart knoweth its own bitterness

Distant from thee — yes! distant and apart,
Without a hope that heart shall join to heart,
No more remembered and no longer grieved,
By friends deserted, and of love bereaved,
How slowly, sadly creep my toilsome hours,
As from Life's garland drop the withered flowers!
When to my grave, perchance by strangers borne,
I soon shall journey, darling, wilt thou mourn?
From thy soft eyes will drops of pity fall
For him who loved thee, dearest, best of all —
Who, though sad Fate dissevers from thy side,
Though stern Misfortune must our lots divide,
Still fondly muses o'er departed days,
Still turns to thee his true and constant gaze?
Ah! let my hand, once warmly pressed in thine,
Ere it grow cold, record the earnest line,
To tell how love, by absence stronger made,
Blooms in the mist and brightens in the shade.

Yes, my life's treasure — for thou wast mine own —
Still clings this heart to thee, and thee alone:
And would not give, for all its present toys,
One recollection of our love's deep joys.
How sweet the landscape of existence smiled
For me, a man, for thee, a very child —
A child in heart, whose confidence and faith
Were pure as innocence and firm as death.
No cloud o'ershadowed: in the calm serene
Of thine own nature nothing dim was seen:
All to delight conspired and naught to grieve,
The world thine Eden, thou its happy Eve;
Alas! my dearest, was it mine to doom
Thy light of love to darkness like the tomb?
Was mine the voice to scare thy steps away
From flower-strewn gardens in the smile of day
To that bleak spot, where night and silence brood,
And the heart wastes in hopeless solitude?
Ah, as I ponder on thy patient wo,
I dare not think who caused thy tears to flow,
As, through Time's veil, I see thy pleading eyes
Half filled with anguish, half with wild surprise,
When from my lips the cruel sentence came
That we must part, not even friends in name —
Once more the fountain bursts its icy seal,
Once more I learn I still have power to feel.

Think not a moment that oblivion hides
What once was dearer than the world besides;
Think not thy picture, from that inner shrine,
Where feeling bends to memories all divine,
Can be removed or yield its guarded place
To fairer form or more seraphic face.
No fickle canvass doth thy features bear,
To fade in daylight or grow dim in air;
But, by love's ray with sunlike warmth impressed,
Thine image glows unchanging in my breast.
Then think not, darling, though " no more — no more, "
Breaks on our souls like waves along the shore,
With a deep tone of sorrow and despair,
That I can cease remembered love to share,
That I can ever from my heart untwine
Affection's tendrils wreathed by hands like thine,
Or recreant prove to vows so truly given,
Not sealed on earth, but registered in Heaven.