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Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/135

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130
Affectional Alchemy.

were created duo-sexed expressly that we might commingle our natures. The soul needs love just as much as the body requires food. Love-starvation the nostalgia, or homesickness of the soul—is the most terrible evil that can oppress the human spirit. Reader, think how dreadful must have been the suffering that inspired these lines—the requiem of a breaking heart:—

"Out from his palace home
He came to my cottage door;
Few were his looks and words,
But they linger for evermore.
The smile of his sad, blue eyes
Was tender as smile could be;
Yet I was nothing to him,
Though he was the world to me!

"Fair was the bride he won,
Yet her heart was never his own;
Her beauty he had and held,
But his spirit was ever alone.
I would have been his slave,
With a kiss for my life-long fee;
But I was nothing to him,
While he was the world to me!

"To-day, in his stately home,
On a flower-strewn bier he lies,
With the drooping lids fast closed
O'er the beautiful, sad blue eyes.
And among the mourners who mourn
I may not a mourner be;
For I was nothing to him,
Though he was the world to me!

"How will it be with our souls
When they meet in the better land?
What the mortal could never know,
Will the spirit yet understand?
Or, in some celestial form,
Must the sorrow repeated be,
And I be nothing to him,
While he dims heaven for me?"