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 fear'd 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 learn'd —
The heart can bind itself alone, And faith may oft be unreturn'd. Self-sway'd our feelings ebb and swell — Thou lov'st no more;— Farewell! Farewell!
Farewell!— and thou, thou lonely heart, Which never yet without remorse Even for a moment didst depart From thy remote and spheréd 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's sleep Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep.
Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved How vain a thing is mortal love, Wandering in Heaven, far removed. 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 dream'd two human hearts might blend In one, and were through faith released From isolation without end
Prolong'd; nor knew, although not less Alone than thou, their loneliness.
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