Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/What one year brought

by William Walter Merry

WHAT ONE YEAR BROUGHT.

 

If they had told me a year ago,
As I lay, all love, at my darling’s feet,
That our hearts would become more cold than snow,
And our eyes never meet when we meet—

If they had told me the treasured tress
Would be shrivell’d and shrunk in the heedless flames;
That love, and devotion, and tenderness
Would become but idle names—

If they had told me the ring you wore
(Well chosen, the opal’s changing hue)
Would be lying crush’d at my feet on the floor
For its crime that it bound me to you—

If they had told me your love was a lie,
That your faith was faithless, and false your heart;
That you would change sweetness to scorn, and I
Should give scorn for your scorn, and depart—

I should have said, with a laugh, that the sun
Would be dark, the hills tottering, and shallow the sea:
One short year through its snows and its roses has run,
Yet you are wedded, and I am free.

W. W. M.