Anne Evans: Poems and Music :: :: University of Virginia Library

Away with loving! Let it all go by;
For losing is too grievous,
And our beloved successively
Turn cold and leave us!
What matter whence the cold may come
Which makes them deaf to us, and blind, and dumb—
Whether from dark thoughts clouding old regard,
Or from their lodging out in the churchyard?
Friends? We may lose our best
Through some poor jest,
And all our after-days lament the losing!
Besides, there is no choosing
One of them all on whom to reckon
If death should beckon.
O miserable men!
O dreary doom!
Our love's delight is hollow—
Hollow as treachery, hollow as the tomb!
Away, away with loving then,
With hoping and believing;
For what should follow,
But grieving, grieving?