Life Begins Again 🥀🌸

Chapter 6 🖤

Unchanged within,  to see all changed without,
Is a blank lot and hard to bear,  no doubt.
Yet why at others' Wanings should'st thou fret ?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then,  from feeble yearnings freed,
While,  and on whom,  thou may'st--shine on ! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite :
And tho' thou notest from thy safe recess
Old Friends burn dim,  like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are ; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were 💓

No other can stir my heart so deep,

Or thrill me through and through,

And in my dreams there will never be

No other love but you.

I THINK I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me,  and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I,  that had been to you,  had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls,  austere,  supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.

She walks in beauty,  like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more,  one ray the less, 
Had half impair'd the nameless grace.
Which waves in every raven tress, 
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure,  how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek,  and o'er that brow, 
So soft,  so calm,  yet eloquent, 
The smiles that win,  the tints that glow, 
But tell of days in goodness spent, 
A mind at peace with all below, 
A heart whose love is innocent!

I know someday I will find

that soul mate who is loving and kind

I know you are out there waiting for me

You are in my thoughts, you are in my dreams.

❤
😭

How wonderful is love!
More wonderful,  I wis1,
Than cherry-blossoms are when spring’s first kiss
Warms the chill breast of earth,
And gives new birth
To beauty! High above
All miracles—the miracle of love,
Which by its own glad and triumphant power
Brings life to flower.
Oh,  love is wonderful!
More wonderful than is the dew-fed rose
Whose petals half unclose,
In welcome of the light,
When first the Dawn comes robed in vesture2 cool
Of fragrant,  shimmering white!—
More wonderful and strange
Than moonrise,  which doth change
Dulness to glory—
Yea,  with a touch transforms the mountains hoary3,
And fills the darkling4 rills5 with living silver bright!

Not music when it wings
From the far azure where the skylark sings
Is wonderful as love!—
Not music when it wells
From the enchanted fairy-haunted dells6
Where,  shrined mid thorn and vine—
An ecstasy apart,
Drawn from the life-blood of a breaking heart—
The nightingale pours forth forever
The rapture and the pain that naught can sever,
Of love which mortal is,  yet knows itself divine!