Should you not come an hour when I await,
And stark the hours should fall one after one,
Void of all beauty and unknown to sun,
I would take sorrow for my constant mate
Nor care if death came early. O, how great
Would be the empty longing of my heart,
Still warm from its late loving, happy part,
Yet fearful of the lonely future state.
Beloved, we stand for now incorporate,
But what of that still hour inevitable
When there shall sound the terrifying knell
Of parting? . . . . Life may keep me very late,
And you may go, and I shall pass alone
Like a gray leaf across a meadow blown.