Impressions: A Book of Verse/To a Despairing Lover

by Lilla Cabot Perry

 

TO A DESPAIRING LOVER

YOUR love you cherish more than life, you say,
And with hot tears each night to Heaven you pray—
Not for release, not that you may love less
Or in some other heart find happiness,
But that you may love more, with love more high
Grown worthier, purer, each day till you die.—
Ah, sweet young love, that to such prayers can move!
Ah sweet, mad folly, wisdom far above!
Your sorrows are another name for bliss,
In days to come perchance you'll think of this,
With lips that smile and eyes that gaze through tears,
Seeing the beauty of that youthful dream,
Down the long leafy vista of the years,
Where sunlit grief as fair as joy shall seem!