4. ISOLATION. TO MARGUERITE

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.