La Mort D'amour
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
When was it that love died? We were so fond,
So very fond a little while ago.
With leaping pulses, and blood all aglow,
We dreamed about a sweeter life beyond,
When we should dwell together as one heart,
And scarce could wait that happy time to come.
Now side by side we sit with lips quite dumb,
And feel ourselves a thousand miles apart.
How was it that love died? I do not know.
I only know that all its grace untold
Has faded into gray! I miss the gold
From our dull skies; but did not see it go.
Why should love die? We prized it, I am sure;
We thought of nothing else when it was ours;
We cherished it in smiling, sunlit bowers:
It was our all; why could it not endure?
Alas, we know not how, or when, or why
This dear thing died. We only know it went,
And left us dull, cold, and indifferent;
We who found heaven once in each other’s sigh.
How pitiful it is, and yet how true
That half the lovers in the world, one day,
Look questioning in each other’s eyes this way
And know love’s gone forever, as we do.
Sometimes I cannot help but think, dear heart,
As I look out o’er all the wide, sad earth
And see love’s flame gone out on many a hearth,
That those who would keep love must dwell apart.
