Henry Kendall

Early Poems (1859-70). The Bereaved One

She sleeps—and I see through a shadowy haze,
 Where the hopes of the past and the dreams that I cherished
In the sunlight of brighter and happier days,
 As the mists of the morning, have faded and perished.
She sleeps—and will waken to bless me no more;
 Her life has died out like the gleam on the river,
And the bliss that illumined my bosom of yore
 Has fled from its dwelling for ever and ever.

I had thought in this life not to travel alone,
 I had hoped for a mate in my joys and my sorrow—
But the face of my idol is colder than stone,
 And my path will be lonely without her to-morrow.
I was hoping to bask in the light of her smile
 When Fortune and Fame with their laurels had crown'd me—
But the fire in her eyes has been dying the while,
 And the thorns of affliction are planted around me.

There are those that may vent all their grief in their tears
 And weep till the past is away in the distance;
But this wreck of the dream of my sunshiny years
 Will hang like a cloud o'er the rest of existence.
In the depth of my soul she shall ever remain;
 My thoughts, like the angels, shall hover about her;
For our hearts have been reft and divided in pain
 And what is this world to be left in without her?