A LOST PEARL by MARGARET ELIZABETH MUNSON SANGSTER

I DO not know where I lost it,
For it slipped from a broken string,
And far and away from my sight to-day,
It lies, a neglected thing.

Or worse, since it may be another
Is wearing my pearl of price,
And the gem that was mine, with its lucent shine,
May be set in some strange device.

I do not know when I lost it;
It was just as the dawning burst
Through the crystalline bars of the lingering stars,
That with sorrow I missed it first.

Perhaps in an opaline twilight,
Perhaps when the moonbeams lay,
With their delicate quiver o'er field and river,
And night was fairer than day.

I never dreamed half how precious
Was my beautiful pearl to me,
Till the grief of its loss, a heavy cross,
I bore over land and sea.

You marvel? You do not divine it?
I have lost what I could not lend,
What I'll mourn while I live; for no art can give
To my heart the lost heart of my friend.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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