Classic Poem

" I heard men praise him, but we never met;
He left his home and traveled far away,
But through no chance or change did I forget
That twenty-fifth of May.

" And ever when it came, one heart at least
Lived o'er again its pangs of parting pain,
And, at the self-same hour, kept lonely tryst
Where we had kept it twain.

" Once, as I sat there, when the sunset shed
A rain of amber light on sea and shore,
Dreaming of all he looked and all he said
That time three years before,

" I heard a well-known footstep — could it be?
Was he not journeying in a foreign land?
Nay, I beheld the face so dear to me,
And felt his clasping hand.

" " I did not hope to find you here," he said;
" But, as I wandered, thinking of the past,
Followed unwittingly the path that led
To where I saw you last.

" Then, as the vesper chimes died soft and sweet,
And starlight came and kissed the pallid sea,
Sitting together on the same old seat,
He told this tale to me.