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Woman's Love Letters

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<h2>Anticipation.</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Let us peer forward through the dusk of years And force the silent future to reveal Her store of garnered joys; we may not kneel For ever, and entreat our bliss with tears. Somewhere on this drear earth the sunshine lies, Somewhere the air breathes Heaven-blown harmonies. </div> <div class="stanza"> Some day when you and I have fully learned Our waiting-lesson, wondering, hand in hand We shall gaze out upon an unknown land, Our thoughts and our desires forever turned From our old griefs, as swallows, home warding, Sweep ever southward with unwearied wing. [Pg 15]</div> <div class="stanza"> We shall fare forth, comrades for evermore. Though the ill-omened bird Time loves to bear Has brushed this cheek and left an impress there I shall be fierce and dauntless as of yore, Free as a bird o'er the wide world to rove, And strong and fearless, O my Love, to love. </div> <div class="stanza"> What have we now? The haunting, vague unrest Of incompleted measures; and we dream Vainly, of the Musician and His theme, How the great Master in a day most blest Shall strike some mighty chords in harmony, And make an end, and set the music free! </div> <div class="stanza"> We snatch from Fate our moments of delight, Few as, in April hours, the wooing calls Of orioles, or when the twilight falls First o'er the forest ere the approach of night [Pg 16] The eyes of evening;—and Love's song is sung But once, Dear Heart, but once, and we are young. </div> <div class="stanza"> Over the seas together, you and I, 'Neath blue Italian skies, or on the hills Of storied Greece,—where the warm sunlight fills Spain's mellow vineyards,—wandering reverently O'er the green plains of Palestine,—our days A golden holiday in Old World ways. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet would we linger not by southern shores; The bracing breath of Scandinavian snows Would draw us from our dreams. The North wind blows Upon thy cheek, my Norseman, and the roars Of the wild Baltic sound within my ears When to my dreams thy stalwart form appears. [Pg 17]</div> <div class="stanza"> This will the future bring. See! Thou hast given From out the fulness of thy strength and will This courage to me. Though the rugged hill Looms high, and fronts our vision, yet our heaven (I see it when I sleep) with portals wide And shining towers, gleams on the farther side. [Pg 18]</div> </div> <hr style="width: 35%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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