The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë/Song (7)
LXVI
SONG
O between distress and pleasure
Fond affection cannot be!
Wretched hearts in vain would treasure
Friendship's joys when others flee.
Well I know thine eye would never
Smile when mine grieved willingly;
Yet I know thine eye for ever
Could not weep in sympathy.
Let us part; the time is over
When I thought and felt like thee;
I will be an ocean rover,
I will sail the desert sea.
Isles there are beyond its billow,
Lands where woe may wander free;
And beloved, thy midnight pillow
Will be soft unwatched by me.
Not on each returning morrow,
When thy heart bounds ardently,
Needst thou then dissemble sorrow,
Marking my despondency.
Day by day some dreary token
Will forsake thy memory,
Till at last, all old links broken,
I shall be a dream to thee.
October 15, 1839.