Florence Earle Coates

Let Me Believe

Let me believe you, love, or let me die!
     If on your faith I may not rest secure,—
     Beyond all chance of peradventure sure,—
     Trusting your half-avowals sweet and shy,
As trusts the lark the pallid, dawn-lit sky,—
     Then would I rather in some grave obscure
     Repose forlorn, than, living on, endure
     A question each dear transport to belie!
It is a pain to thirst and do without,
     A pain to suffer what we deem unjust,
     To win a joy—and lay it in the dust;
But there's a fiercer pain,—the pain of doubt:
     From other griefs Death sets the spirit free;
     Doubt steals the light from immortality!