Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 by Various
page 65 of 267 (24%)
page 65 of 267 (24%)
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'You see,' I said,'I have mixed these colors with my life-wine.'
'Why, then,' she asked, carelessly, 'with your insufficient strength, were you tempted to woo and follow me?' So my life with its endeavors was a wreck. I thought of the good I had sacrificed, of the hopes that had failed. The Past and Future alike pierced my hands with crucificial nails, till, faint with the pain and the scorning, I lapsed into a long prostration, from which I came at last to the dawn-light of sad, once-forgotten eyes--to the odor of withered rosemary. 'True heart that I spurned,' I cried, 'can you forgive? I will return Aspiro scorn for scorn, and go humbly back, where it is perhaps not yet too late for happiness.' With dreary reproaches came memory, disenthralled. I dreamed of my youth, its love, and its aim. I pictured a porch with its breeze-tossed vines, a rocking boat on a limpid lake, a narrow path through twilight-brooded woods, and each scene the shrine of a sweet face with brown, banded hair, and love-lit eyes. And these pictures were the True. My heart cleaved the eternity of separation, beaconing my sad return to them, and I followed gladly, hope being not yet dead. The summer porch was shady with fragrant vines--but I missed the face. I buoyed my heart, and said, 'Of course she would not have waited so long.' |
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