Dramatic Scenes :: :: University of Virginia Library

I watch the house wherein she dwelleth,
Love-conquered quite:
I watch and wait, till some one telleth
That she is about to break the night
With her light;

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And then—for I know the road she travelleth—
I steal away,
And meet her. Face to face unravelleth
All that I long have burned to say,
Night and day.

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She moves; the conscious beauty crowning
Her queenly eyes;
I, with my face of fire, disowning
The coward heart that within me dies.
And so Time flies;

And Life, which is so short, will tremble
And fade in death,
Before the love, which I dissemble,
Will dare to tell, in faltering breath,
All my heart saith.

Still haunt I every path she treadeth,
The field, the lane;
And read—oh, every book she readeth:
And some who see my tortured brain,
Will soothe the pain,—

Will tell me how she ought to love me,
And that her heart
(Altho' her eyes look cold above me)
Feels, thro' her pride, the arrow dart,
But hides the smart.

And then, I hope!—At times a glory,
From some far clime,
Shoots thro' the darkness of my story,
And then I give my soul to rhyme,
As now;—and trust to time.