The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston :: :: University of Virginia Library

AFTER LOVE'S PASSING.

The awful stillness in two human souls
Whence Love has passed away;
The dreary night no moon of joy controls;
The undelightful day;—

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The cruel coldness where was once Love's heat;
The darkness where was light;
The burning, tearless eyes; the weary feet
That journey day and night;—

The long, dark way that has no end but one,—
That goal no man may miss;
The winds that wail about the sunken sun
For life's departed bliss;—

The fearful loneliness that comes between
Those souls erst one, now twain;
The passionate memory of what has been;
The unavailing pain;—

The springs that come, but bring no hope of change;
The cheerless, summer hours;
With songs of birds grown old and harsh and strange,
And scentless, bloomless flowers;—

The fruitless autumn, with no garnered corn;
The dreary, winter weather;
The two who walk apart, alone, forlorn,
Who once kept step together;—

The bitter sense of failure and regret;
The life without an aim;
The unavailing struggle to forget
The weakness, owned with shame;—

These things make sad the night and sad the day,
And hard are they to bear:
Yet let those souls whence Love has passed away
Though sad, keep pure and fair:

Ah, let them say, “Great Love once tarried here
Making his home divine,—
Though he has passed, yet let us still hold dear
The temple and the shrine.”