You and I

          You and I — You and I! 
The words go chiming through my brain, 
I murmur them over and over again; 
I murmur them softly, I scarce know why, 
When only the angels who love me hear, 
And the dearest angel of all seems near, 
With her luminous eyes looking love into mine — 
With her large, dark eyes, whose depths divine 
Are filled to the brim with tendernesses; 
And my brow, where the hot blood throbs and beats
Partly with thought and partly with pain,
To an unseen hand's unseen caresses
Yields, for an hour, its fever heats.
And wears the smooth front of its childhood again.

          You and I — You and I! 
What if either of us should die? 
Could the hearts that have loved so tenderly 
Be severed by death? Not so — not so! 
My soul leans out from its house of clay 
When the breeze that has fanned your cheek goes by,
And says, “She is near! I feel the touch 
Of her lip to mine! of her hand, at play 
With my hair, as it did when, long ago, 
We sat in the hush of summer eves, 
Saying but little, yet loving much. 
And believing all that love believes." 
And so I know, whatever may list, 
Our souls shall keep their holy tryst 
Through all the years of the life to be; 
They shall meet and clasp and intertwine. 
And quaff of Love's delicious wine, 
Till, filled and thrilled with a bliss divine, 
They float, like halcyons, over the sea 
That laves thy shores, Eternity! 
Keeping their tryst whatever may list, 
Through all the years of the life to be.

          You and I — You and I! 
We have drank of the cup which Joy hath blessed, 
And Youth hath brimmed to its overflow; 
And a sterner hand to our lips hath pressed 
The bitter sacrament of woe! 
Yet, whether the sunshine bright and warm, 
Or the gelid breath of the winter storm. 
Be over our path and in our sky, 
One thing, whatever is false beside, 
My soul accepts as a verity:
Though youth, with its lustihood and pride,
And the stern ambitions of life's full prime,
And the greeds which delve and the hopes which climb, 
Shall fail, and the life-tide, ebbing low, 
Come back no more with its vital flow — 
Yet Love still shapes our destiny, 
Love reigns o'er all triumphantly, 
Love lives through all immortally, 
Love is its own eternity, 
And we are Love's, and cannot die!