Have you, too, grown stronger and wiser, as the months and the years have rolled on? Did you meet her this morning rejoicing in the triumph of victory won?
Nay, hear me! The truth cannot harm you. When to-day in her presence you stood, Was the hand that you gave her as white and clean as that of her womanhood?
Go measure yourself by her standard. Look back on the years that have fled; Then ask, if you need, why she tells you that the love of her girlhood is dead!
She cannot look down to her lover; her love, like her soul, aspires; He must stand by her side, or above her, who would kindle its holy fires.
Now, farewell! For the sake of old friendship I have ventured to tell you the truth, As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our earlier youth.
A SONG FOR TWO
Not for its sunsets burning clear and low, Its purple splendors on the eastern hills, Bless I the Year that now makes haste to go While sad Earth listens for its dying thrills.
Not that its days were sweet with sun and showers; Its summer nights all luminous with stars: Not that its vales were studded thick with flowers; Not that its mountains pierced the azure bars;
Not that from our dear land, by slow degrees, Some mists of error it hath blown away; Not for its noble deeds—ah! not for these— Fain would I twine this wreath of song to-day.
But for one gift that it has brought to me My grateful heart would crown the dying Year: Because, O best-beloved, it gave me thee, I drop this garland on the passing bier!