Your forehead to the window crest,
And stifle sobs that no command
Can keep from rising in your breast.
Dear, balm is not for griefs like ours,
Nor resurrection for dead hope:
In vain we cover wounds with flowers,
That grow upon life's western slope.
Their leaves tho' bright, are hard, and dry,
They have no soft and healing dew;
The pansies of past spring-times lie
Dead in the shadow of the yew.
You feel this in your heart, and turn
To pace the dimness of your room;
But lo, like fire within an urn,
The moonlight glows through all the gloom.
It sooths you like a living touch,
And spite of the slow-falling tears,
Sweet memories crowd with oh, so much,
Of all that girlhood's time endears.
On nights like this, with such a moon,
Full shining in a wintry sky;
Or on the softer nights of June,
When fleecy clouds fled thought-like by,
Within our chamber opening east,
With curtains from the window parted,
With hands and cheeks together prest,
We dreamed youth's glowing dreams, light-hearted.
Or talked of that mysterious love
That comes like fate to every soul:
And vowed to hold our lives above,
Perchance its sorrowful control.
Alas, the very vow we made,
To keep our lives from passion free,
To wiser hearts well had betrayed
Some future love's intensity.
