I listened till I heard his step
Pass from the closing door;
The pang of death can but be like
The pang that then I bore.
Time measures many hours; for me,
He measured long and slow;
I thought the night would never end,
The day would never go.
I took no other note of time,
Than when his letters came.
How often did I ask of them,
Ah! does he feel the same?
A letter is an anxious thing,
Made up of hopes and fears;
And still we question does it mean
More than at first appears.
It never satisfies the heart—
We ask for something more.
Alas! we miss the loving eyes
That looked love’s truth before.
He ceased to write—day after day
I waited, and in vain;
Fears that were fancies turned to truth—
He never wrote again.
Words—what are words?—I have no words
To tell of my despair.
If ever death was felt in life,
Look in my heart—’twas there.
The summer past—the autumn past—
For all a world so wide,
I would not live those hours again—
I would that I had died.
Again I saw the well-known hand,
How my heart beat to see!
And can such letter be from him,
And can such be to me?
9
