The Song of Camille
Sitting alone by my window,
Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen,
To the well-known sound of your feet
I have been wondering darling
How I can bear the pain,
When I watch with sighs and tear-wet eyes,
And wait for your coming in vain.
For I know that the day approaches,
When your heart will tire of me,
When by door and gate I must watch and wait,
For a form I shall not see.
For the love that is now my heaven
The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
And that other will be your wife.
You will grow weary of sinning,
Though you do not call it so
You will long for a love that is purer
Than the love that we two know,
God knows I love you dearly
With a passion strong as true,
But you will grow tired and leave me
Though I gave up all for you.
I was pure as the morning
When I first looked on your face,
I knew I could never reach you
In your high exalted place,
But I looked and loved and worshipped
As a flower might worship a star
And your eyes shown down upon me
And you seemed so far, so far.
And then? Well then you loved me
Loved me with all your heart,
But we could not stand at the altar
We were so far apart.
If a star should wed with a flower,
The star must drop from the sky
Or the flower in trying to reach it
Would droop on its stem and die.
But you said that you loved me darling,
And swore by the heavens above
That the Lord and all of his Angels
Would sanction and bless our love,
And I? I was weak, not wicked,
My love was as pure as true,
And sin itself seemed a virtue,
If only shared by you.
We have been happy together,
Though under the cloud of sin
But I know that the day approaches
When my chastening must begin,
You seem to think kindly of me
But you seem downhearted and blue,
But you will not always be
And I think I had better leave you.
I know my beauty is fading,
Sin furrows the fairest brow,
And I know your heart will weary,
Of the face you smile on now.
You will take a bride on your bosom,
After you turn from me,
You will sit with your wife in the moon-light
And hold your babe on your knee.
Oh! God I could not bear it,
I would my brain I know,
And while you love me dearly,
I think I had better go.
It is sweeter to feel my darling
And know as I fall asleep
That some would mourn me and miss me
That someone was left to weep.
Though to die as I should in the future,
To drop in the streets some day,
Unknown, unwept and forgotten,
After you passed me away.
Perhaps the blood of the Savior,
Can wash my garments clean,
Perchance I may drift on the water,
That flows in the pastures green.
Perchance we may meet in heaven,
And walk in the street above,
With nothing to grieve us or part us,
Since our sinning was all through love.
God says, love one another,
And down to the depths of Hell,
Well he sent the soul of a woman,
Because she loved—and fell.
And so in the moon-light he found her,
Or found her beautiful clay,
Lifeless and pallid as marble,
For the spirit had flown away.
The farewell words she had written,
She held to her cold white breast,
And the buried blade of a dagger,
Told how she had gone to rest.
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