THE HEART OF SADNESS

It is not, Dear, because I am alone, I am lonelier when the rest are near, But that my place against your heart has grown Too dear to dream of when you are not here.

I weep because my thoughts no more may roam To meet, half-way, your longing thoughts of me, To turn with these and spread glad wings for home, For the dear haven where I fain would be.

When first we loved, I loved to steal away To show to solitude what love could do, To fill the waste space of the night and day With thousand-wingèd dreams that flew to you; But now through many tears I am grown wise To know how mighty and how dear love is; I dare not turn to him my longing eyes, Nor even in dreams lean out my face to his,

Because, if once I let my caged heart go Through dreams to seek you, I should follow too Through wrong and right, through wisdom and through woe, Through heaven and hell, until I won to you!