Faded Leaves: 3. Separation

Stop!--not to me, at this bitter departing,
Speak of the sure consolations of time!
Fresh be the wound, still-renew'd be its smarting,
So but thy image endure in its prime.

But, if the stedfast commandment of Nature
Wills that remembrance should always decay--
If the loved form and the deep-cherish'd feature
Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away--

Me let no half-effaced memories cumber!
Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee!
Deep be the darkness and still be the slumber--
Dead be the past and its phantoms to me!

Then, when we meet, and thy look strays toward me,
Scanning my face and the changes wrought there:
Who, let me say, _is this stranger regards me,
With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair_?