And on whose notes with breathless hush she hung,
Were prized for memories which they did awake—
To her an echo what to me was life.
O God, the strings that quivered would not break!—
He came! Can I forget that inward strife
Which made me calm?—The mightiest grief is dumb.
They met:—he clasped her—called her plighted wife!—
A frost was in that moment to benumb
My very sense of anguish—and I smiled.
Freed by despair—what after-pang could come?