Poems (Allen)/Lost Light

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

LOST LIGHT.

Y heart is chilled and my pulse is slow,
But often and often will memory go,
  Like a blind child lost in a waste of snow,
  Back to the days when I loved you so,—
      The beautiful long ago.

I sit here, dreaming them through and through,
The blissful moments I shared with you,—
  The sweet, sweet days when our love was new,
  When I was trustful and you were true,—
      Beautiful days, but few.

Blest or wretched, fettered or free,
Why should I care how your life may be,
  Or whether you wander by land or sea?
  I only know you are dead to me,
      Ever and hopelessly.

O, how often at day's decline,
I pushed from my window the curtaining vine,
  To see from your lattice the lamplight shine,—
  Type of a message that, half divine,
      Flashed from your heart to mine.

Once more the starlight is silvering all;
The roses sleep by the garden wall,
  The night-bird warbles his madrigal,
  And I hear again through the sweet air fall
      The evening bugle-call.

But summers will vanish and years will wane,
And bring no light to your window-pane;
  Nor gracious sunshine nor patient rain,
  Can bring dead love back to life again:
      I call up the past in vain.

My heart is heavy, my heart is old,
And that proves dross which I counted gold;
  I watch no longer your curtain's fold,
  The window is dark and the night is cold,
      And the story forever told.