Constance Caroline Woodhill Naden

Yearning

I MURMUR songs of past delight,
To tunes of present pain:
Around me is the empty night
That answers not again.

My thoughts were better told by tears,
And yet I scorn to weep:
Forgetting hopes, forgetting fears,
My eyes and heart shall sleep.

Yet must I see, in visions wild,
The joys I cannot gain,
And, like a little lonely child,
Stretch out my arms in vain.