Poem by 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. 

1. At the Boro Boedoer
2. Sonnets of Sorrow. 18. The wise ones tell me that my heart's wild clamour
3. The Coming Man
4. Ye Agents
5. Geraldine

Bessie Parkes Absence ("I AM not lonely, O my Love")

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