I answer’d—“Why could not your work be mine?
What parts us now? What though, like mine, your soul
Had come to look down life’s long dreary vista,
And watch yourself alone. Why bide alone?
I, I, at least, through all these years have seen—
Not you yourself, for that too dear had been!—
But I have seen a vision, seeming you
Within the far horizon of my hopes,
The sweet mirage before me. Now, at last,
I know those misty outlines veil’d the truth;