SPOKEN IN ANGER.

’Twas but a little word in anger spoken,

While proud eyes flashed through bitter burning tears;

But oh, I felt that fatal word had broken

The cord of love that bound our hearts for years.

Thy tortured face, that long wild look of sorrow,

Like some pale ghost, must haunt me while I live;

And yet, how bright, how full of joy the morrow,

Had I but breathed one simple word—‘Forgive!’

I did not hear thy tender voice appealing,

Nor marked thy anguish when I cried, ‘Depart!’

Too blind to see thy pitying glance, revealing

The generous promptings of thy noble heart.

How could I know that faithful heart was yearning,

Though crushed and wounded to its inmost core,

To take me back, like weary bird returning

In fear and trembling, when the storm is o’er!

‘Remember, love, that it may be for ever;

To see my face no more by night or day.

Be calm, rash heart, think well before we sever;

Recall the angry word, and bid me stay.’

Dead silence fell; the song-birds hushed their singing.

‘Enough,’ I proudly cried; ‘I choose my fate.’

While ever through my maddened brain kept ringing

The death-knell of my love—too late, too late!

‘Forgive, forgive!’ I wailed, the wild tears streaming,

As, ’mid the moaning trees, I stood alone;

‘Love, let thy kisses wake me from my dreaming.’

Thy pleading voice, thy tortured face, was gone.

That angry word, I may recall it never;

For o’er thy narrow grave, rank weeds have grown.

‘Remember, love, that it may be for ever.’

Ah, words prophetic! love, had I but known!

My locks are gray, my eyes are dim with weeping,

The face once loved by thee, no longer fair;

Beneath the daisies, thou art calmly sleeping:

There, a lone woman often kneels in prayer.

Ah, sweetheart mine, thou art so lowly lying,

Thou canst not hear the tearful voice above,

That with the night-wind evermore is sighing:

‘I spoke in anger! oh, forgive me, love!’

Fanny Forrester.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.