Poems (Chitwood)/Change

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

For works with similar titles, see Change.

CHANGE.

Though years have passed since last we met—
 Long years of change and blight,
I read the old love burning yet
 In thy sad eyes to-night.
But though thy voice is still as sweet
 As when thy early vow
First made my heart-strings faster beat,
 It can not thrill me now.

I took thy hand, as in a dream,
 I left the joyous throng.
And, 'neath the starlight's tender beam,
 I sat beside thee long;
But, indistinctly to mine ear
 Come each remembered vow—
The words I used to weep to hear
 Have ceased to move me now.

The tress I gave thee long ago,
 Hath rested near thy heart.
Through summer's bloom and winter's snow,
 The while we were apart;
But years that since have settled down.
 Upon my girlish brow
Have changed my locks of gold to brown,—
 It will not match them now.

My locket!—oh, with what surprise
 I started, none can know—
The shadows of my girlhood eyes
 Reproached, reproved me so.
A smile of love those lips caressed,
 No shade was on the brow;—
Ah, friend, the girl you loved the best
 Hath strangely altered now.

And thou art changed; the world's rough war,
 Its sorrow, and its care,
Have left, alas, full many a scar
 Upon thy forehead fair.
But, ah, thy heart—thy heart hath kept
 Its first and only vow,
While change within my own hath crept;—
 I can not love thee now.

O friend, the careless-hearted one
 That stands unmoved by thee,
With smiles for all, and love for none,
 Like butterfly or bee,
Is not the fragrant-hearted thing
 Who gave thee her first vow,
In that delicious day of spring
 That is but memory now.

Oh dream thy early love is dead,
 That moss and roses now
Are o'er the golden-curtained head,—
 But ashes long ago.
Forget that she has said, to-night,
 With cold, unloving brow,
And eyes without a tearful light—
 "I can not love thee now."