The Lost Mistress

All's over, then: does truth sound bitter

As one at first believes?

Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter

About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,

I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?

May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,--well, friends the merest

Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black,

Though I keep with heart's endeavour,--

Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,

Though it stay in my soul for ever!--

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,

Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,

Or so very little longer!

The Death Bed

We watch'd her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers

To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied--

We thought her dying when she slept,

And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,

And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids closed--she had

Another morn than ours.