ALONE IN THE HOUSE

I am all alone in the house to-night;

They would not have gone away

Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight

I have held with my heart to-day.

With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain

I have battled hour by hour;

But the fates have willed that the strife is vain.

Alone in the hour my thoughts have reign,

And I yield myself to their power.

Yield myself to the old time charm

Of a dream of vanished bliss,

The thrill of a voice, and the fold of an arm,

And a red lip's lingering kiss.

It all comes back like a flowing tide;

That brief, but beautiful day.

Though it oft is checked by the dam of pride,

Till the waters flow back to the other side,

To-night it has broken away.

I gave you all that I had to give,

O love, the lavish whole.

And you threw it away, and now I live

A starved and beggared soul.

And I feed on crumbs that memory throws

From her table over-filled,

And I lay awake when others repose,

And slake my thirst when no one knows,

With the wine that she has spilled.

I go my way and I do my part

In the world's great scene of strife,

But I do it all with an empty heart,

Dead to the best of life.

And ofttimes weary and tempest tossed,

When I am not ruled by pride,

I wish ere the die was throne and lost,

Ere I played for love without counting the cost,

That I, like my heart, had died.