Fate Knows no Tears
Just as the dawn of Love was breakingAcross the weary world of grey,Just as my life once more was wakingAs roses waken late in May,Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making,Stepped in and carried you away.
Memories have I none in keepingOf times I held you near my heart,Of dreams when we were near to weepingThat dawn should bid us rise and part;Never, alas, I saw you sleepingWith soft closed eyes and lips apart,
Breathing my name still through your dreaming.—Ah! had you stayed, such things had been!But Fate, unheeding human scheming,Serenely reckless came between—Fate with her cold eyes hard and gleamingUnseared by all the sorrow seen.
Ah! well-beloved, I never told you,I did not show in speech or song,How at the end I longed to fold youClose in my arms; so fierce and strongThe longing grew to have and hold you,You, and you only, all life long.
They who know nothing call me fickle,Keen to pursue and loth to keep.Ah, could they see these tears that trickleFrom eyes erstwhile too proud to weep.Could see me, prone, beneath the sickle,While pain and sorrow stand and reap!
Unopened scarce, yet overblown, lieThe hopes that rose-like round me grew,The lights are low, and more than lonelyThis life I lead apart from you.Come back, come back! I want you only,And you who loved me never knew.
You loved me, pleaded for compassionOn all the pain I would not share;And I in weary, halting fashionWas loth to listen, long to care;But now, dear God! I faint with passionFor your far eyes and distant hair.
Yes, I am faint with love, and brokenWith sleepless nights and empty days;I want your soft words fiercely spoken,Your tender looks and wayward ways—Want that strange smile that gave me tokenOf many things that no man says.
Cold was I, weary, slow to wakenTill, startled by your ardent eyes,I felt the soul within me shakenAnd long-forgotten senses rise;But in that moment you were taken,And thus we lost our Paradise!
Farewell, we may not now recoverThat golden “Then” misspent, passed by,We shall not meet as loved and loverHere, or hereafter, you and I.My time for loving you is over,Love has no future, but to die.
And thus we part, with no believingIn any chance of future years.We have no idle self-deceiving,No half-consoling hopes and fears;We know the Gods grant no retrievingA wasted chance. Fate knows no tears.