Relicta :: :: University of Virginia Library

Catch me, little maiden, catch me if you can!
Shall I be your sweetheart? Shall I be the man
Who has leave to love you, who will some day move
That which in your woman's heart answers to his love?

Come, and when you've caught me, sit upon my knee;
For I prize the fondness you have shown to me:
Let me have it while it lasts—that will not be long:
Let me kiss you while I may; soon, it will be wrong.

Soon, your love will cease, dear; shall I tell you why?
Some one else will have it all, far more tenderly;
Some one else may give you love lasting and divine;
But it will not cannot be such a love as mine.

Mine is just a grave man's love for a loving child;
For an artless innocence, pure and undefiled:
Yet, if I could take you up straight into my life—
If I were but young enough—you should be my wife.

I would wait for you, my dear—wait till you are grown;
Till you know your heart as well as I know my own:
I would ask you, when I saw that the time had come,
If you still could share with me happiness, and home.

But, I go away, dear, and if I return,
I shall find you alter'd; I shall have to learn
That I may not kiss you then, may not think of you:
You will be another maid, not the one I knew.

Ah, if I do not return, that perhaps were best!
I should go on loving you then, and be at rest;
I should think you still the same; I should always see
Only this beloved child, sitting on my knee.