Parted

The Kiote May 1901

Parted

 

We meet, but thou art not the same to me.

Thy voice has lost its old familiar sound;

The light that once spoke from thine eager eyes,

Responsive to my every word or though

When years ago we two lived one glad life,

Heart joined to heart, and blended soul to soul,

That light is gone.

 

In that dear season now these long years past

Thy fondest hopes, thy fears, thy prayers were mine;

The same sweet secrets thrilled our girlish breasts,

The songs I sang were thine, and all my tears,

My joys, my sorrows, all earth held for me

The best, the dearest in my life thou shared.

 

We meet to-night.  But somehow, all is changed.

Thou art another, not thine old sweet self,

The one I loved; and in her stead has come

One I no longer know, and she is gone –

Thou, if ‘tis thou, art stranger to me now.

The old sweet harmony is broken – gone.

My friend so much beloved could not thus change.

I love her yet, and if it can be true

That she is dead, and thou her counterfeit,

For me, who love her more, more now than then,

She still shall live in memory’s sacred halls.

She still must live, and still be true to me,

And love me now as in that dear dead past.

 

E. D.

The Kiote, May 1901