thee!”
The very heart from out my breast
I plucked, I gave it willingly:
Her very heart she gave to me—
Then died the glory from the west.

In the gray light I saw her face,
And it was withered, old, and gray;
The flowers were fading in their place,
Were fading with the fading day.

Forth from her, like a hunted deer,
Through all that ghastly night I fled,
And still behind me seemed to hear
Her fierce unflagging tread;
And scarce drew breath for fear.

Yet marked I well how strangely seemed
The heart within my breast to sleep:
Silent it lay, or so I dreamed,
With never a throb or leap.

For hers was now my heart, she said,
The heart that once had been mine own:
And in my breast I bore instead
A cold, cold heart of stone.
So grew the morning overhead.

The sun shot downward through the trees
His old familiar flame:
All ancient sounds upon the breeze
From copse and meadow came—
But I was not the same.

They call me mad: I smile, I weep,
Uncaring how or why:
Yea, when one’s heart is laid asleep,
What better than to die?
So that the grave be dark and deep.

To die! To die? And yet, methinks,
I drink of life, to-day,
Deep as the thirsty traveler drinks
Of fountain by the way:
My voice is sad, my heart is gay.

When yestereve was on the wane,
I heard a clear voice singing
So sweetly that, like summer-rain,
My happy tears came springing:
My human heart returned again.

“A rosy child,
Sitting and singing, in a garden fair,
The joy of hearing, seeing,
The simple joy of being—
Or twining rosebuds in the golden hair
That ripples free and wild.

“A sweet pale child—
Wearily looking to the purple West—
Waiting the great For-ever
That suddenly shall sever
The cruel chains that hold her from her rest—
By earth-joys unbeguiled.

“An angel-child—
Gazing with living eyes on a dead face:
The mortal form forsaken,
That none may now awaken,
That lieth painless, moveless in her place,
As though in death she smiled!

“Be as a child—
So shalt thou sing for very joy of breath—
So shalt thou wait thy dying,
In holy transport lying—
So pass rejoicing through the gate of death,
In garment undefiled.”

Then call me what they will, I know
That now my soul is glad:
If this be madness, better so,
Far better to be mad,
Weeping or smiling as I go.

For if I weep, it is that now
I see how deep a loss is mine,
And feel how brightly round my brow
The coronal might shine,
Had I but kept mine early vow:

And if I smile, it is that now
I see the promise of the years—
The garland waiting for my brow,
That must be won with tears,
With pain—with death—I care not how.

May 9, 1862.