If I had known.




Anticipation.

Let us peer forward through the dusk of years
And force the silent future to reveal
Her store of garnered joys; we may not kneel
For ever, and entreat our bliss with tears.
Somewhere on this drear earth the sunshine lies,
Somewhere the air breathes Heaven-blown harmonies.

Some day when you and I have fully learned
Our waiting-lesson, wondering, hand in hand
We shall gaze out upon an unknown land,
Our thoughts and our desires forever turned
From our old griefs, as swallows, home warding,
Sweep ever southward with unwearied wing.

We shall fare forth, comrades for evermore.
Though the ill-omened bird Time loves to bear
Has brushed this cheek and left an impress there
I shall be fierce and dauntless as of yore,
Free as a bird o'er the wide world to rove,
And strong and fearless, O my Love, to love.

What have we now? The haunting, vague unrest
Of incompleted measures; and we dream