There

There! I saw you there last night!
Inward, where my angels I keep;
You weren’t changed a bit, only a difference slight—
Once there, each morning I awoke - Now there, in sleep.

Why! you looked just the same,
Why couldn’t I tell it was you?
Dear, So ill of me! So lame!
I could see nothing but the blue.

And hushed, you passed by me,
Echoless, you slipped away,
Never could I hear, Never could I see;
How overlooked in my way-
My beating heart, as crushed it lay.

Tell me, oh lost one;
Whence did you stray?
What came upon you to abandon?
Why, my dear, could you not stay?

I ask the skies each night
To confess their secrets, kept pristine;
Sweet or sad, wrong or right.
Hoping there would be some light, in oblivion passed unseen.

Some light that could lead me—
To where you now dwell
Some light in which I could see;
If everything with you is well.

--As well as it used to be,
Back when dreams were dreams;
Back when I had you with me.
Back when I did not long to drift, along those drifting streams.

And I was mundane, and you were too.
And to our pains, we lent little heed
When we could forget, and start anew
Back when I could laugh, and happily so to death bleed.