Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Absence

After you went away, our lovely room
    Seemed like a casket whence the soul had fled.
I stood in awful and appalling gloom,
    The world was empty and all joy seemed dead.

I think I felt as one might feel who knew
    That Death had left him on the earth alone.
For "all the world" to my fond heart means you;
    And there is nothing left when you are gone.

Each way I turned my sad, tear-blinded gaze,
    I found fresh torture to augment my grief;
Some new reminder of the perfect days
    We passed together, beautiful as brief.

There lay a pleasing book that we had read---
    And there your latest gift; and everywhere
Some tender act, some loving word you said,
    Seemed to take form and mock at my despair.

All happiness that human heart may know
    I find with you; and when you go away,
Those hours become a winding-sheet of woe,
    And make a ghastly phantom of To-day.