Poems (Odom)/Again
AGAIN.
And shall I meet you once again? My friend of other years—My heart is filled with joy and pain, With smiles subdued by tears.
'T is years on years since we have met As something more than friends;Those brief, bright joys—shall we forget Each love-dream as it ends?
Or shall we garner up each word That blessed us as it fell?The sweet, sad thoughts by memory stirred, We feel, but never tell!
Can this be wrong for you and I— Such friends as we have been—To love our past, the dear gone-by, We were so happy in?
We dared not love each other, Yet a something half divine—A something I would not forget For Peru's golden mine—
Embalmed the precious, holy hours, The hours spent with you,As night the many sleeping flowers Begems with crystal dew.
But had we both been free to feel "The passion of the heart,"Would fate's unrolling scroll reveal That we but met to part?
Say, would you then have turned aside Your glances from my own?Would I have buried in my pride My heart's deep undertone?
And now we call each other friend, And walk our separate ways—While memory rainbows brightly bend Above the olden days.