Iii

O but what grace if I could but forget you! You have made league with all familiar things-- The thrush that still, evening and morning, sings, The aspen leaves that sigh "My dear!" with your true voice when I pass by.... O, and that too-long-dying flush of tender sky That minds me, and with sense too grave for tears, Of those forever dead too-blissful years.

Yet 'twere a miracle could I forget you, Since even dead things, once sensible of you, Yield up your ghost; as all the garden through Murmurs the rose, "'Twas she Shook in her palm the dew that shone in me;" And on the stairs your recent footstep echoingly Sounds yet again, and each dark doorway speaks Of you toward whom my sharpened longing seeks.

O that I could forget or not regret you! Could I but see you as I have seen a fair Child under apple-burdened boughs that bear Morn's autumn beauty, and Seeing her saw all heaven at my hand, And all day long that happy child before me stand.... Not thus I see you, but as one drowning sees Home, friends--and loves his very enemies!