If You were Here.
If you were here to-day,
And I could take your hand in mine,
And look into your eyes and say,
"Forgive me, dear," I know that heart of thine
Would all respond, too gladly;
Though words I may have said
Had shaken your brave spirit sadly,
Your hand would rest upon my head,
In nought but earnest kindness;
Your gentle voice and dainty tread,
Would waft away my blindness,
And I would not have mourned thee—dead.
And I could take your hand in mine,
And look into your eyes and say,
"Forgive me, dear," I know that heart of thine
Would all respond, too gladly;
Though words I may have said
Had shaken your brave spirit sadly,
Your hand would rest upon my head,
In nought but earnest kindness;
Your gentle voice and dainty tread,
Would waft away my blindness,
And I would not have mourned thee—dead.
I gaze into your sad, sweet eyes,
In pictured form; and wonder
How chasms yawn, and walls arise
'Twixt those whom nought should sunder.
Strange, when friends are few,
And purest love a dainty rare,
We'll not prove true—
That with a fixed and vacant stare
We look away in cold pretense,
"It is all right," "we do not care,"
When every heart beat, hot and tense,
Denies the charge—laid bare.
In pictured form; and wonder
How chasms yawn, and walls arise
'Twixt those whom nought should sunder.
Strange, when friends are few,
And purest love a dainty rare,
We'll not prove true—
That with a fixed and vacant stare
We look away in cold pretense,
"It is all right," "we do not care,"
When every heart beat, hot and tense,
Denies the charge—laid bare.
—65—
