Edith Nesbit

15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924 / Kennington / Surrey / England

The Heart Of Sadness

IT is not, Dear, because I am alone,
For I am lonelier when the rest are near,
But that my place against your heart has grown
Too dear to dream of when you are not here.

I weep because my thoughts no more may roam
To meet, half-way, your longing thoughts of me,
To turn with these and spread glad wings for home,
For the dear haven where I fain would be.

When first we loved, I loved to steal away
To show to solitude what love could do,
To fill the waste space of the night and day
With thousand-wingèd dreams that flew to you;

But now through many tears I am grown wise
To know how mighty and how dear love is;
I dare not turn to him my longing eyes,
Nor even in dreams lean out my face to his,

Because, if once I let my caged heart go
Through dreams to seek you, I should follow too
Through wrong and right, through wisdom and through woe,
Through heaven and hell, until I won to you!
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