And when I wake, and turn to clasp my love
My sinking heart finds but her vacant place.
Since that sad day that stole her from my arms
I've seen a generation of sweet girls
Grow up to womanhood, but none like her!
Hut that bright vision that just flitted by
Seemed so like her it made me cringe and start.
O dear Asita, little worth is life,
With all its tears and partings, woes and pains,
If when its short and fitful fever ends
There is no after-life, where death and pain,
And sundered ties, and crushed and bleeding hearts,
And sad and last farewells are never known."
Such was the old and such the new-born love;
The new quick bursting into sudden flame,
Warming the soul to active consciousness
That man alone is but a severed part
Of one full, rounded, perfect, living whole;
The old a steady but undying flame,
A living longing for the loved and lost;
But each a real hunger of the soul
For what gave paradise its highest bliss,
And what in this poor fallen world of ours
Gives glimpses of its high and happy life.
O love! how beautiful! how pure! how sweet!
Life of the angels that surround God's throne!
But when corrupt, Pandora's box itself,
Whence spring all human ills and woes and crimes,
The very fire that lights the flames of hell.
The festival is past. The crowds have gone,
The diligent to their accustomed round
Of works and days, works to each day assigned,
The thoughtless and the thriftless multitude
To meet their tasks haphazard as they come,
But all the same old story to repeat
Of cares and sorrows sweetened by some joys.
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