Love.

THERE is no blessedness in life
Apart from blessed Love;
This sanctifies the dreary strife
Which all who live must prove;
It lifts the burden from the soul,
And puts the staff into the hand;
The gloomy clouds behind us roll,
And all before is dawn and fairy-land.

And this we felt when side by side
Beneath those garden trees
We sat, when Spring was in her pride
Of blossoms, birds and bees.
A richer life we needed not,
A time less bright we did not fear,
Than hallowed then that blessed spot,
And made the past and future disappear.

The murmuring bees about us swarming,
The violets at our feet,
Within our hearts were gently forming
All dreams and visions sweet;
The warm and scented air was snowing
With scattered blossoms from the trees,
And through the sky we heard the flowing
Of Nature’s dear and new-born harmonies.

We cannot now as once we did,
Gaze in each other’s eyes,
For lonely absence doth forbid
All save our longing sighs;
But memories of such hours as these
Come like some gently floating strain
At midnight on a summer breeze,
And make us near forget these hours of pain.

O Love is light when all is dark!
It goeth on before,
A strong and still preserved ark,
Though tempests round us roar.
0 Love the sphered world contains;
All life within itself it hath;
All else goes by, but Love remains,
And waves a heaven-lit torch before our path.