University of Virginia Library


81

VII.

If I could see thee!—know
Just once for certain that thou waitest me,
The dreariest pang would go:
But this is just the gift which cannot be.
Most hard it seems to bear,
Most hard,—that, if the dead be living yet,
Our foreheads may be met
Never by breathings from their mountain-air.
O mother—just to know
That Death's forlorn black “Never” is a lie!
Then could I wait to die;
Will no Power speak the word I long for so?
I gaze into the void
Of silent sea and starlit deep-blue air,
By the heart's madness buoyed:—
It is in vain; thou art not there.