Poem by Dora Greenwell

Reconciliation

Our waking hours write bitter things
 Against us on Life's wall;
But Sleep her small soft finger brings,
 And draws it through them all.
Oh! sweet her kiss on tired eyes,
 More sweet to make amends
Her child-kiss on the soul that lies,
 And sayeth, "Come, be friends!"
One is there I have loved so long
 And deep, I know not when
I loved her not with Love too strong
 To change its now to then;
But Love had been with Love at war,
 And bitter words had been,
And silence bitterer by far
 Had come our souls between;
But now she came to me in sleep,
 Her eyes were on my soul:
Kind eyes! they said, "And didst thou weep
 And I did not console?
Look up, and be no longer sad!"
 She called me by my name:
Our spirits rushed together, glad
 And swift as flame to flame;
And all the sweetness from my life
 Crushed out, and all the bloom
That wasted through those years of strife,
 And faded on their gloom,
Came back together; as of old
 She clasped me, then I knew
And spoke not, stirred not, fold by fold
 Our hearts together grew:
Then thought I—as in whisper soft,
 "We two have died, and this
Is joy that saints have told of oft,—
 The meeting and the kiss."
Such bliss, forgiving and forgiven,
 Ran through me while I slept.
To find the ties that Earth had riven
 Above were sacred kept;
And yet I knew it was not Heaven,—
 Because I wept!

1. Seeking
2. God's Singer
3. When the Night and Morning Meet
4. Faint Yet Pursuing
5. To Christina Rossetti

Madison Cawein Reconciliation ("Listen, dearest! you must love me more")

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