You "never loved me," Ada. These slow words Dropped softly from your gentle woman-tongue Out of your true and kindly woman-heart, Fell, piercing into mine like very swords The sharper for their kindness. Yet no wrong Lies to your charge, nor cruelty, nor art, -- Ev'n when you spoke, I saw the tender tear-drop start. You "never loved me." No, you never knew, You, with youth's morning fresh upon your soul, What 't is to love: slow, drop by drop, to pour Our life's whole essence, perfumed through and through With all the best we have or can control For the libation -- cast it down before Your feet -- then lift the goblet, dry for evermore. I shall not die as foolish lovers do: A man's heart beats beneath thid breast of mine, The breast where -- Curse on that fiend-whispering "It might have been!" -- Ada, I will be true Unto myself -- the self that so loved thine: May all life's pain, like these few tears that spring For me, glance off as rain-drops from my white dove's wing! May you live long, some good man's bosom flower, And gather chldren round your matron knees: So, when all this is past, and you and I Remember each our youth-days as an hour Of joy -- or anguish, one, serene, at ease, May come to meet the other's steadfast eye, Thinking, "He loved me well!" clasp hands, and so pass by. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOW WE BEAT THE FAVOURITE by ADAM LINDSAY GORDON A THOUGHT IN TWO MOODS by THOMAS HARDY ECSTACY by KENNETH SLADE ALLING THE LESSER BEAUTY by MARGARET STEELE ANDERSON A COURTESAN'S BIRTHDAY by ROBERT AVRETT THE MUSIC O' THE DEAD by WILLIAM BARNES INAUGURATION SONNET: WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |