Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Alice LearnedBunner

1448 Vingtaine

I
SEPARATION

COULD she come back who has been dead so long,

How could I tell her of these years of wrong?

To what wild discords has my life been set

Striving the olden love-song to forget!

How could she know, in the abode of bliss,

The utter loneliness of life in this,—

The weariness that comes of nights unslept,

The hopeless agony of tears unwept?

Could she come back, between would lie those years,

And I could only look at her—through tears.

II
IMMUTABILIS

FOR death must come, and change, and, though the loss

Seems to the lonely soul the heaviest cross,

More bitter is the fate that day by day

Sees with sick heart the slow and sure decay

Of Faith and Love; and all our days we spend

In sorrow that these deathless things can end.

Far kinder then were death, for so should we

Be left with an unchanging memory,

And after-years this comfort would restore,—

That which Death takes is ours forevermore.