My Lost Love.
‘ He ran and shouted Lost ! Lost ! Lost !’
When I awake from heavy-lidded sleep,1
And through the sternest labour of the day,2
And when I watch the dying sun’s last ray,3
And while my soul in fancy’s dreams I steep—4
For ever ringing through my work or play,5
Those words, like a perpetual moan,6
Make to my life a constant undertone.7
What have I lost,8
That such a murmur ever haunteth me ?9
What sad enchantment hath my life so crost,10
And taught me such a minor melody ?11
I will look back into the past and see12
If I can find why I so haunted be.13
This do I find :14
That I have lost a love—a love that seemed15
With such a passion to my own resigned,16
That I had deemed17
That love for ever mine ; but Love hath wings,18
And goon departs, as do all happy things.19
And yet I had not sought20
This love; it came unasked, a shivering bird,21
Half frighted lest in seeking me it erred ;22
But I received that love with sorrow fraught,23
And my whole heart opened to give it room,24
And find for it a warm and friendly home.25
It was a frail and weakly thing,26
That little Love—and I did strive27
Most anxiously to keep the thing alive ;28
And so it lived all through the early spring.29
I did not know that when its wings were strong,30
My bird would fly and leave me.31
O Love ! my love ! whom I have loved so long,32
How couldest thou so grieve me ?33