If I might see you coming through the door,
Though with averted face and smileless eye,
Were I allowed that little boon, no more,
Then I were glad to die.
But oh, my God! this living day on day,
Stripped of the only joy your starved heart had,
Shut in a prison world and forced to stay—
Why that way souls go mad!
To-day I heard a woman say the earth,
All blossom garlanded, was fair to see.
I laughed with such intensity of mirth,
The woman shrank from me.
Fair? Why, I see the blackness of the tomb
Where’er I turn, and grave mould on each brow;
And grinning faces peer out of the gloom—
Good God! I am mad now.
WHICH
We are both of us sad at heart,
But I wonder who can say
Which has the harder part,
Or the bitterer grief to-day.
You grieve for a love that was lost
Before it had reached its prime;
I sit here and count the cost
Of a love that has lived its time.
Your blossom was plucked in its May,
In its dawning beauty and pride;
Mine lived till the August day,
And reached fruition and died.
You pressed its leaves in a book,
And you weep sweet tears o’er them.
Dry eyed I sit and look
On a withered and broken stem.
And now that all is told,
Which is the sadder, pray,
To give up your dream with its gold,
Or to see it fade into grey?