TO M__

O! I care not that my earthly lot

Hath little of Earth in it,

That years of love have been forgot

In the fever of a minute:

I heed not that the desolate

Are happier, sweet, than I,

But that you meddle with my fate

Who am a passer by.

It is not that my founts of bliss

Are gushing- strange! with tears-

Or that the thrill of a single kiss

Hath palsied many years-

’Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs

Which have wither’d as they rose

Lie dead on my heart-strings

With the weight of an age of snows.

Not that the grass- O! may it thrive!

On my grave is growing or grown-

But that, while I am dead yet alive

I cannot be, lady, alone.