The Autumnal Eve.
We met and parted on an autumn eve,1
When moonlight, with its beauty, steeped the vale,2
Silent, and not a cloud was seen to sail3
Athwart the azure firmament. Believe,4
Ye who have felt the ecstasies of love,5
What were my feelings, when I gazed on her,6
Whom—absent—life had nothing to confer ;7
Whose presence rendered earth like heaven above
!8
Upon a rock, above the murmuring sea,9
Linked arm and arm, in thoughtfulness we stood
;10
And, as I marked our shadows on the flood,11
I dream’t that Fate intended us to be12
United always—’twas a dream ; and, lo !13
Between us mountains rise, and oceans flow !14