ESTRANGED.
"It is good-bye," she said; "the world is wide, There's space for you and me to walk apart. Though we have walked together side by side, My thoughts all yours, my resting-place your heart, We now will go our different ways. Forget The happy past. I would not have you keep One thought of me. Ah, yes, my eyes are wet; My love is great, my grief must needs be deep.
"Yet I have strength to look at you, and say: Forget it all, forget our souls were stirred, Forget the sweetness of each dear, dead day, The warm, impassioned kiss, the tender word, The clinging handclasp, and the love-filled eyes— Forget all these; but, when we walk apart Remember this, though wilful and unwise, No word of mine did ever hurt your heart."
THE PARTING.
One summer's morning I heard a lark Singing to heaven, a sweet-throated bird; One winter's night I was glad in the dark Because of the wondrous song I had heard.
The joy of life, I have heard you say, Is my love, my laughter, my smiles and tears; When I have gone on the long, strange way, Let these stay with you through all the years—
These be the lark's song. What is love worth That cannot crowd, in the time that's given To two like us on this gray old earth, Such bliss as will last till we reach heaven?
Dear one, think oft of the full, glad years, And, thinking of them, forget to weep. Whisper: "Remembrance holds no tears!" And kiss my mouth when I fall on sleep.