La Mort D'Amour.

Why do eyes that were tender,
    Averted, turn away?
Why has our dear love's splendour
    All faded into gray?
Why is it that lips glow not
    That late were all aglow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
    I only know 'tis so.

Why do you no more tremble
    Now when I kiss your cheek?
Why do we both dissemble
    The thoughts we used to speak?
Why is it that words flow not
    That used to fondly flow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
    I only know 'tis so.

Have we outlived the passion
    That late lit earth and sky?
And is this but the fashion
    A fond love takes to die?
Is it, that we shall know not
    Again love's rapture glow?
I trust not, sweet, I trust not -
    And yet it may be so.

When love is lost, the day sets towards the night,
Albeit the morning sun may still be bright,
And not one cloud-ship sails across the sky.
Yet from the places where it used to lie
Gone is the lustrous glory of the light.

No splendour rests in any mountain height,
No scene spreads fair and beauteous to the sight;
All, all seems dull and dreary to the eye
    When love is lost.

Love lends to life its grandeur and its might;
Love goes, and leaves behind it gloom and blight;
Like ghosts of time the pallid hours drag by,
And grief's one happy thought is that we die.
Ah, what can recompense us for its flight
    When love is lost?

        I think that the bitterest sorrow or pain
    Of love unrequited, or cold death's woe,
    Is sweet compared to that hour when we know
        That some grand passion is on the wane;

        When we see that the glory and glow and grace
    Which lent a splendor to night and day
    Are surely fading, and showing the gray
        And dull groundwork of the commonplace;

        When fond expressions on dull ears fall,
    When the hands clasp calmly without one thrill,
    When we cannot muster by force of will
        The old emotions that came at call;

        When the dream has vanished we fain would keep,
    When the heart, like a watch, runs out of gear,
    And all the savor goes out of the year,
        Oh, then is the time - if we ...

See him quake and see him tremble,
    See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
    This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
    Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he's tasted -
    He has lived a year.

He has passed his day of glory,
    All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
    He is very old.
Just a leaf's life in the wild wood,
    Is a love's life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
    When he's lived a year.

Long ago he lost his reason,
    Lost his trust and faith -
Better far in his first season
    Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
    No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
    Love that's lived a year...

Let us clear a little space,
And make Love a burial place.

He is dead, dear, as you see,
And he wearies you and me,

Growing heavier, day by day,
Let us bury him, I say.

Wings of dead white butterflies,
These shall shroud him, as he lies

In his casket rich and rare,
Made of finest maiden-hair.

With the pollen of the rose
Let us his white eye-lids close.

Put the rose thorn in his hand,
Shorn of leaves - you understand.

Let some holy water fall
On his dead face, tears of gall -

As we kneel by him and say,
"Dreams to dreams," and turn away.

Those grave diggers, Doubt, Distrust,
They will lower him to the dust.

Let us part here with a kiss,
You go that way, I go this.

Si...

Sitting alone by the window,
    Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
    To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
    How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes,
    And wait for your coming in vain.

For I know that a day approaches
    When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
    For a form I shall not see;
When the love that is now my heaven,
    The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
    And that other will be - your wife.

You will grow weary of sinning
    (Though you do not call it so),
You will long for a love that is purer
    Than the love that we two know.
God knows I have loved you dearly,