Henry Francis Lyte

A Lost Love

I meet thy pensive, moonlight face;
Thy thrilling voice I hear;
And former hours and scenes retrace,
Too fleeting, and too dear!

Then sighs and tears flow fast and free,
Though none is nigh to share;
And life has nought beside for me
So sweet as this despair.

There are crush'd hearts that will not break;
And mine, methinks, is one;
Or thus I should not weep and wake,
And thou to slumber gone.

I little thought it thus could be
In days more sad and fair
That earth could have a place for me,
And thou no longer there.

Yet death cannot our hearts divide,
Or make thee less my own:
Twere sweeter sleeping at thy side
Than watching here alone.

Yet never, never can we part,
While Memory holds her reign:
Thine, thine is still this wither'd heart,
Till we shall meet again.