O, unforgotten lips, grey haunting eyes,
Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered brow,
It is all true, the old love never dies;
And, parted, we must meet for ever now.
We did not think it true! We did not think
Love meant this universal cry of pain,
This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink,
This lonely crucifixion o'er again.
Yet through the darkness of the sleepless night
Your tortured face comes meekly answering mine;
Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are white;
Dark, but I know why those dark lashes shine.
O, love, love, love, what death can set us free
From this implacable ghost of memory?
A PRAYER
Only a little, O Father, only to rest
Or ever the night comes and the eternal sleep,
Only to rest a little, a little to weep
In the dead love's pitiful arms, on the dead love's breast,
A little to loosen the frozen fountains, to free
Rivers of blood and tears that should slacken the pulse
Of this pitiless heart, and appease these pangs that convulse
Body and soul; oh, out of Eternity,
A moment to whisper, only a moment to tell
My dead, my dead, what words are so helpless to say—
The dreams unuttered, the prayers no passion could pray,
And then—the eternal sleep or the pains of hell,