Severed and Gone

Severed and gone, so many years,
And art thou still so dear to me,
That throbbing heart and burning tears
Can witness how I clung to thee?

I know that in the narrow tomb
The form I loved was buried deep,
And left in silence and in gloom
To slumber out its dreamless sleep.

I know the corner where it lies
Is but a dreary place of rest:
The charnel moisture never dries
From the dark flagstone o'er its breast.

For there the sunbeams never shine,
Nor ever breathes the freshening air:
But not for this do I repine,
For my belovéd is not there.

Ah, no! I do not think of thee
As festering there in slow decay:
'Tis this sole thought oppresses me,
That thou art gone so far away.

For ever gone. And I, by night
Have prayed, within my silent room,
That Heaven would grant a burst of light
Its cheerless darkness to illume,

And give thee to my longing eyes
A moment, as thou shinest now,
Fresh from thy mansion in the skies,
With all its glory on thy brow.

Wild was the wish, intense the gaze
I fixed upon the murky air,
Expectant that a kindling blaze
Would strike my raptured vision there,—

A shape these human nerves would thrill,
A majesty that might appal,
Did not thy earthly likeness still
Gleam softly, gladly through it all.

False hope! vain prayer! It might not be
That thou shouldst visit earth again;
I called on heaven—I called on thee—
And watched, and waited, all in vain!

Had I one treasured lock of thine,
How it would bless these longing eyes!
Or if thy pictured form were mine,
What gold should rob me of the prize?

A few cold words on yonder stone,
A corpse as cold as they can be;
Vain words and mouldering dust, alone,—
Can this be all that's left of thee?

Ah, no! thy spirit lingers still
Where'er thy sunny smile was seen;
There's less of darkness, less of chill
On earth, than if thou hadst not been.

Thou breathest in my bosom yet,
And dwellest in my beating heart;
And while I cannot quite forget,
Thou, darling, canst not quite depart.

Life seems more sweet that thou didst live,
And men more true that thou wert one;
Nothing is lost that thou didst give,
Nothing destroyed that thou hast done.