Poems (Craik)/A Rejected Lover
OU "never loved me," Ada. These slow words,Dropped softly from your gentle woman-tongue Out of your true and kindly woman-heart, Fell, piercing into mine like very swords The sharper for their kindness. Yet no wrong Lies to your charge, nor cruelty, nor art,—Ev'n while you spoke, I saw the tender tear-drop start.
A REJECTED LOVER.
OU "never loved me," Ada. These slow words,Dropped softly from your gentle woman-tongue Out of your true and kindly woman-heart, Fell, piercing into mine like very swords The sharper for their kindness. Yet no wrong Lies to your charge, nor cruelty, nor art,—Ev'n while you spoke, I saw the tender tear-drop start. You "never loved me." No, you never knew, You, with youth's morning fresh upon your soul, What 't is to love: slow, drop by drop, to pour Our life's whole essence, perfumed through and through With all the best we have or can control For the libation—cast it down before Your feet—then lift the goblet, dry for evermore.
I shall not die as foolish lovers do: A man's heart beats beneath this breast of mine, The breast where—Curse on that fiend-whispering "It might have been!"—Ada, I will be true Unto myself—the self that so loved thine: May all life's pain, like these few tears that spring For me, glance off as rain-drops from my white dove's wing!
May you live long, some good man's bosom- flower, And gather children round your matron knees: So, when all this is past, and you and IRemember each our youth-days as an hour Of joy—or anguish, one, serene, at ease, May come to meet the other's steadfast eye, Thinking, "He loved me well!" clasp hands, and so pass by.