Poems (Hooper)/Re-United

by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

RE-UNITED.

You are dead, and I am dying;
 We shall meet before the morrow;
All our lonely years are ended;
 We have done with pain and sorrow.
I shall see you ere the setting
 Of yon slowly rising moon.
Ay, we knew not when we parted
 That we'd meet again so soon.

All the long years we were severed,
 All their bitter sorrows seem
Like the pale and fading phantoms
 Of a scarce-remembered dream.
And my heart forgets its aching
 In the joy that thrills it now;
There are none to come between us
 In the land to which I go.

Do you know that I am coming?
 Do you watch for me to-night?
Do you wait above the stars, love,
 As I wait beneath their light?
Ah, I know that you are waiting
 In your fair and distant home!
We've a tryst now, O belovéd!
 Where no enemies can come.

You are dead, and I am dying,
 Very slowly, but at last.
And I trust the death-veiled Future
 To redeem the mournful Past.
Ne'er was pillow pressed so gladly
 As the one whereon I'm lying;
For I know you'll greet my waking.
 You are dead, and I am dying!