To Marguerite

We were apart: yet, day by day,     I bade my heart more constant be;     I bade it keep the world away,     And grow a home for only thee:     Nor feard but thy love likewise grew,     Like mine, each day more tried, more true.     The fault was grave: I might have known,     What far too soon, alas, I learnd     The heart can bind itself alone,     And faith is often unreturnd.     Self-swayd our feelings ebb and swell:     Thou lovest no more: Farewell! Farewell!     Farewell! and thou, thou lonely heart,     Which never yet without remorse     Even for a moment didnt depart     From thy remote and spherd course     To haunt the place where passions reign,     Back to thy solitude again!     Back, with the conscious thrill of shame     Which Luna felt, that summer night,     Flash through her pure immortal frame,     When she forsook the starry height     To hang over Endymion sleep     Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep;     Yet she, chaste Queen, had never provd     How vain a thing is mortal love,     Wandering in Heaven, far removd.     But thou hast long had place to prove     This truth to prove, and make thine own     Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.     Or, if not quite alone, yet they     Which touch thee are unmating things     Ocean, and Clouds, and Night, and Day;     Lorn Autumns and triumphant Springs;     And life, and others joy and pain,     And love, if love, of happier men.     Of happier men for they, at least,     Have dreamd two human hearts might blend     In one, and were through faith releasd     From isolation without end     Prolongd, nor knew, although not less     Alone than thou, their loneliness.