We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee;
Nor fear’d but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.
The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learn’d-
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith may oft be unreturn’d.
Self-sway’d our feelings ebb and swell-
Thou lov’st no more;-Farewell! Farewell!
Farewell!-and thou, thou lonely heart,
Which never yet without remorse
Even for a moment didst depart
From thy remote and spherèd course
To haunt the place where passions reign-
Back to thy solitude again!
Back! with the conscious thrill of shame
Which Luna felt, that summer-night,
Flash through her pure immortal frame,
When she forsook the starry height
To hang over Endymion’s sleep
Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep.
Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved
How vain a thing is mortal love,
Wandering in Heaven, far removed.
But thou hast long had place to prove
This truth-to prove, and make thine own:
“Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.”
Or, if not quite alone, yet they
Which touch thee are unmating things-
Ocean and clouds and night and day;
Lorn autumns and triumphant springs;
And life, and others’ joy and pain,
And love, if love, of happier men.
Of happier men-for they, at least,
Have dream’d two human hearts might blend
In one, and were through faith released
From isolation without end
Prolong’d; nor knew, although not less
Alone than thou, their loneliness.
(Matthew Arnold)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, Life Poems, World Poems, Night Poems, Heaven Poems, Place Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, Home Poems, Pain Poems, Art PoemsBased on Keywords: remote, vain, removed, heart, moment, mortal, depart, feelings, long, oft, fault