Impressions: A Book of Verse/Meeting after Absence and Change

by Lilla Cabot Perry

 

MEETING AFTER ABSENCE AND CHANGE

CAN I indeed be I, and you be you,
Happy yet parted? This far stranger seems
Than all the wild imaginings of dreams,
And yet your &ce that once so well I knew
Smiles through the whirling darkness—yes 'tis true!
The past is past—and memory without pain
Wakes as I feel my hand in yours again
And pictures in my mind our last adieu.

With trembling voice, cold hand, and paling cheek
You said good-bye at sunset—and alone
Went stumbling down the hill to meet the night
And I—I watched the ever-fading light
And felt my heart slow turning into stone
And waved the last farewell I could not speak.