I cannot forget you. The one boon ungiven,
The boon of your love, is the cross that I bear.
In the midnight of sorrow, I vainly have striven
To crush in my heart the sweet image hid there;
To banish the beautiful dreams that are thronging
The halls of my memory--dreams worse than vain;
For the one drop withheld, I am thirsting and longing,
For the one joy denied, I am weeping in pain.
I would not forget you. I live to remember
The beautiful hopes that bloomed but to decay,
And brighter than June glows the bleakest December,
When peopled with ghosts of the dreams passed away.
Once loving you truly, I love you forever;
I mourn not in weak, idle grief for the past;
But the love in my bosom can never, oh never
Pass out, or another pass in, first or last.
[THE OLD AND THE NEW]
As a mother who dies in travail--
Who closes her eyes in death,
And sinks in the sleep that is long and deep,
With her babe's first wailing breath,
In the hush of the midnight watches,
So, the old year passed away,
And the new was born, and was hailed this morn,
As the "Happy New Year Day."
The day when our eyes look backward,
To see what our hands have done,
Through the hours of gold that the dead year told,
Like the beads of a pious Nun--
When we shut up the blotted ledger,
With its record of joy and grief,
Of losses and gains, and pleasures and pains,
And turn to the new white leaf
We hoped, we planned, and we promised,
When the year that is dead was young:
But our hopes are like leaves that are withered,
And the year like a song that is sung.
We planned out some wonderful project,
That should bring to us riches and fame:
Hour by hour, day by day, our plans fell away,
And our project was only a name.
We promised that life should be better,
As the sphere of our labors grew broad,
That "those things behind" should pass from the mind,
As we reached for the prize of our God.
But alas, for the promises given!
Lo, what were our good resolves worth?
They were lost to our sight, and we strayed from the light,
And worshiped the poor things of earth.
And so, while we builded our castles,
With turrets of sapphire and gold,
Till they glowed in the sun, the months one by one,
Slipped away, and the year grew old--
Grew feeble and old and departed
In the shadows and gloom of the night;
And some said 'twas a year full of sorrow,
And some, 'twas a year of delight.
Some, sitting in darkness and weeping,
Sob, "Oh. but the year was so long!"
And some, full of cheer, say the beautiful year
Was only one verse of a song.
To some it brought gladness and pleasure,
To others but sorrow and gloom.
It gave one the sweet orange blossoms,
Another, the dust of the tomb.
There are mothers to-day who are sitting,
With arms that are aching to hold
The small form of grace, and the dear little face,
And the head with its crown of spun gold;
And they think of the last happy New Year,
And the voice that made music all day,
And, sitting alone in the silence, they moan,
For the babe that is hidden away.