And if you seemed to know
(As you know now) the dreams that, like a light,
Shone in my soul? For, dear, it seems so right--
So very right that you should hold me so!

Here, in the moonlight, there is nothing new,
The very arms that crush me to your heart,
Seem almost like a memory, a part
Of some vague yesterday that has come true--
I feel tonight as if I, dear, might start
A journey back, across the years, with you!

FORGIVEN

You left me when the weary weight of sorrow
Lay, like a stone, upon my bursting heart;
It seemed as if no shimmering tomorrow
Could dry the tears that you had caused to start.
You left me, never telling why you wandered--
Without a word, without a last caress;
Left me with but the love that I had squandered,
The husks of love and a vast loneliness.

And yet if you came back with arms stretched toward
me,
Came back to-night, with carefree, smiling eyes,
And said: "My journeying has somehow bored me,
And love, though broken, never, never dies!"
I would forget the wounded heart you gave me,
I would forget the bruises on my soul.
My old-time gods would rise again to save me,
My dreams would grow supremely new and whole.
What though youth lay, a tattered garment, o'er you?
Warm words would leap upon my lips, long dumb;
If you came back, with arms stretched out before
you,
AND TOLD ME, DEAR, THAT YOU WERE GLAD TO COME!

THE WRITING

Sometimes a mist of sunlight across a stranger's hair,
Sometimes the vague expression upon a stranger's
face,
Can make me feel your presence--can fill a lonely
place
With dreams of life half realized. Faint music
through the air
Can make me hear your foot-fall, again, upon the
stair--
Sometimes a dancer moving with quite unconscious
grace,
Can make my pulse beat faster; and for a breathless
space
Can make me turn, expecting to find you standing
there!

You have not gone! The passing of every empty
day
Has only brought you nearer. Those things that
were a part
Of all we planned together are bits of you that stay,
To bruise my soul as sharply as any fla