Marah :: :: University of Virginia Library

When you and I are dead, when all is over,
Life's long confusions clear'd, love's trials past,
The truth, they hid and hurt, will you discover,
And know and understand me at the last?
When all is over!

2

And will you then be sad for all I suffer'd?
You, to whose trusted hand's mistrustful blow
This poor wrong'd heart's defenceless fondness offer'd
So safe a mark! Will you be sad to know
The pain it suffer'd?

3

If so, perchance what might have been, and was not,
You then will honour more than what has been;
And life, when lost, will have what now it has not,
Your wish, at least, that its set suns had seen
The day that was not.

4

That was not, but that would have been, my dearest,
Had you had faith in it, or faith in me!
For that day's dawn, tho' long delay'd, was nearest
Just when you chose that it should never be
Our day, my dearest.

5

If, even when all is over, still you never
Will know or understand, then must I pray

That death be one long dreamless sleep forever,
If more than now you know, you never may,
Still never, never!

6

But if you know at last, and sigh to know it
Too late, that sigh will all my pain requite.
Better too late than never! Could death show it,
I think 'twould, even then, set all things right
To know you know it.