TEARS.
O HANDS that I have held in mine,
That knew my kisses and my tears,
Hands that in other years
Have poured my balm, have poured my wine;
Women, once loved, and always mine,
I call to you across the years,
I bring a gift of tears,
I bring my tears to you as wine.
THE LAST EXIT.
OUR love was all arrayed in pleasantness,
A tender little love that sighed and smiled
At little happy nothings, like a child,
A dainty little love in fancy dress.
But now the love that once was half in play
Has come to be this grave and piteous thing.
Why did you leave me all this suffering
For all your memory when you went away?
You might have played the play out, O my friend,
Closing upon a kiss our comedy.
Or is it, then, a fault of taste in me,
Who like no tragic exit at the end?
AFTER LOVE.
O TO part now, and, parting now,
Never to meet again;
To have done for ever, I and thou,
With joy, and so with pain.
It is too hard, too hard to meet
As friends, and love no more;
Those other meetings were too sweet
That went before.