Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Daily Talks

So much I miss those daily talks with you,
O my Beloved!  Though you answer not,
(In any manner that of old I knew)
Yet will I seek in each familiar spot,
To bring your sympathetic spirit near
      Where it may hear
My inmost thoughts, in written words revealed.
Perchance my bleeding heart may thus be healed,
Of that deep wound this silence makes therein.
The world has no harsh sound, no clash, no din
So hard to bear as silence day on day,
And night on night, the while we plead and pray
For some faint echo from the world unseen.
      Dear, you have been
A year and three score days lost to my sight,
And to my touch and hearing; and despite
My life-long faith in Heaven's proximity,
And in communion of souls linked by love,
Yet do we seem divided by a sea
Across whose still unatlassed waters move
Out-going silent ships, that come not back.
      Still do I watch the track
Of that strange midnight craft, whereon you sailed.
Believing love like yours which never failed
On earth to keep its promises will find
Some way to give mine eyes, which now are blind,
Their clearer sight, and to prepare my ear
Its message from the other world to hear.
The while I wait, perchance you, too, wait near,
Attentive, smiling, in the olden way,
Beloved, day by day.