XXVI

When we two parted, on a summer day,
With lingering hands, with sobs, with swimming eyes,
With broken phrases, half made up of sighs--
The while before us in a vision lay
The dreary shadows of the lonesome way
That we must tread, ere, under happier skies,
The fate that sported with our sacred ties
Might choose to smile on us, her helpless prey;--
Dost thou remember, then, the last close kiss
That joined our burning lips, my gentle dove--
A kiss whose frenzied hold would not remove?
The crowning sorrow, the sharp grievous bliss
Of desperate fear? And how we clung to this,
This woeful joy, this long, long kiss of love?