To —— Poem by Richard Crawley

When as I think on all the love I give
To one who still must marble be to me,
When I regard how all my fellows live
And marvel at my loving only thee,
Then I lament that I am not as they,
Whose happy souls with mutual ardour burn,—
That I must give and ever give away,
And have for all my giving no return.
Sometimes I think that I will wander forth
To bear my worship to some other shrine,
And ransack all the places of the North,
West, South, and East for one that's like to thine,
But I can ne'er that wise apostate be
True to myself, and renegade to thee.
Like the day when vapours dun
Have obscured the glorious sun,
Like the night when stars are hid,
Like the year when spring is dead,
Like the flower whose bloom hath flown,
Is the heart when love is gone.

But the star the moment shrouds,
From the corner of the clouds
Issues brighter than before ;
And from nature's dewy floor
Surely rises up the spring,
Bearing youth to everything :

But the flower will bloom again,
And eternal from the main
To the realms that wait for morning
Comes the sun their shores adorning :
And the rains bring back the river.
Love, once gone, is gone for ever.