A Song of Eternity in Time
Once, at night, in the manor woodMy Love and I long silent stood,Amazed that any heavens couldDecree to part us, bitterly repining.My Love, in aimless love and grief,Reached forth and drew aside a leafThat just above us played the thiefAnd stole our starlight that for us was shining.
A star that had remarked her painShone straightway down that leafy lane,And wrought his image, mirror-plain,Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.“Thus Time,” I cried, “is but a tearSome one hath wept ‘twixt hope and fear,Yet in his little lucent sphereOur star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”
Macon, Georgia, 1867. Revised in 1879.