Through the deep shadows of the darkening years, She strove with griefs, which oft were agonies, - The traitorous Hopes transformed to haunting Fears, The transient Raptures ending but in sighs: Till at the last, the life-clouds cleared away, The future bathed in promise heavenly bright, She heard a tender voice which seemed to say, At evening time, behold! I give thee light! For love, true love, her woman's nature yearned, - And now true Love hath crowned her longing wild, And all without, and all within her burned The glory of his Godhead undefiled. A new world dawned upon her; divine forms Gleamed in the sunset on her earnest eyes, And throned above the years which set in storms, She saw the opening gates of Paradise; An earthly Eden, freed from earth's alloy; Across the happy porch her footsteps passed, When on the very threshold of her joy, Death's sudden angel blew his trumpet blast: The gates of light, as that fierce trumpet rang, Dissolved, like some vain phantom of the air, And born of desolation deep, outsprang A passionate cry - the last - of her despair: Love! we have been so happy! Must we part? Even as she spoke the final darkness came, To many sorrowing, and one broken heart, Leaving thenceforth but memory, and - a name! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BOSTON ATHENAEUM by AMY LOWELL THE COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER TO HIS EMPTY PURSE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER FLORENCE VANE by PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE DUNS SCOTUS'S OXFORD by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS THE ENKINDLED SPRING by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE |