3. SEPARATION

By Matthew Arnold

Stop!— not to me, at this bitter departing,

Speak of the sure consolations of time!

Fresh be the wound, still-renew'd be its smarting,

So but thy image endure in its prime.

But, if the stedfast commandment of Nature

Wills that remembrance should always decay —

If the loved form and the deep-cherish'd feature

Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away —

Me let no half-effaced memories cumber!

Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee!

Deep be the darkness and still be the slumber —

Dead be the past and its phantoms to me!

Then, when we meet, and thy look strays toward me,

Scanning my face and the changes wrought there:

Who, let me say, is this stranger regards me,

With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair?