Poems (Allen)/Foreshadowing

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4385822Poems — ForeshadowingElizabeth Chase Allen
FORESHADOWING.
I KNOW, my friend,
We never have been lovers; but when we
Of these sweet summer-hours shall find the end,
     And there shall be
A courteous close to all our pleasant speech,—
  When you go out into the burring crowd,
  To battle, like a warrior iron-browed,
For all the worldly blessings which you claim,—
     Wealth, power, and fame,—
Things which I do not crave and cannot reach,—
  I wonder if your heart will be the same,—
Will beat as evenly and tranquilly,
     Away from me?
If, when you find your separate life once more,
'T will be as whole and happy as before?

     It may be so:
Ambition has broad leaves,which overgrow
The feebler heart-plants, blossoming small and low;
     And yet, I think,
When time, or change, or both, have snapped the link
Which holds us now so lightly' heart to heart;
When you have found out new and pleasant ways,
     From these apart;
Have loved fair women, and have known great men,—
Perhaps grown great yourself, and tasted praise,—
Despite the rosy ties which bind you then,
You will look back to these tame, quiet days,
     With dim, strange pain;
And haply in your dreaming, think of me,
   Half mournfully,
Saying,—while all surrounding witcheries
   Seem dull and vain,
And Beauty's smile and Flattery's ministries
Lose, for the time, their hold on heart and brain,—
"Ah me! how little she was like to these!
Would I could look upon her face again!"

     'T is all I crave,
This one regretful thought. I ask no more,—
And you will yield it ere you shall be old,—
     Though not before
The opulent dandelion's rounds of gold
     Shall brightly pave
The sunny footway leading to my grave.