Farewell! for I have schooled my heart
    At last to say farewell to thee!
Now I can bear to look on death,—
    Its bitterness is past for me.

There was a time I should have wept
    To look upon my altered brow—
The lip, whence red and smile are fled—
    But I am glad to see them now!

The faded brow, the pallid lip,
    Proclaim what soon my fate will be;
And welcome is their tale of death,
    For I have said farewell to thee!

When first we met, I saw thee all
    A girl's imagining could feign;
I did not dream of loving thee,
    Still less of being loved again.

I felt it not, till round my heart
    Link after link the chain was wove;
Then burst at once upon my brain
    The maddening thought—I love! I love!

We then were parting, others wept,
    But I let not one teardrop fall;
And when each kind Farewell was said,
    Mine was the coldest of them all.

But mine the ear that strained to hear
    Thy latest step; and mine the eye
That watched thy distant shape, when none
    But me its shadow could descry.

And when the circle in its mirth
    Had quite forgot Farewell and Thee,
I went to my own room, and wept
    The tears I would not let thee see.

And time pass'd on; but not with time
    Did thoughts of thee and thine depart;
The lesson of forgetfulness
    Was what I could not teach my heart.

We met again, and woman's pride
    Nerved me to what I had to bear;
I would not, tho' my heart had broke,
    Have let thee find thine image there.

I felt thine eyes gazing on mine;
    I felt my hand within thine hold;
I heard my name breathed by thy voice,
    And I was calm, and I was cold.

And then I heard you had a bride—
    I know not how, I know not when—
For, still my brain swims round to think
    Of all, all that I suffered then!

I knew the day, the very hour,
    That you were wed, and heard your vow;
I heard the wedding bells—oh, God!
    Mine ear rings with them even now!

I may not say that you were false,
    I never had one vow from thee;
But I have often seen thine eye
    Look as it loved to look on me.

And when you spoke to me, your voice
    Would always take a softer tone;
And surely that last night your cheek
    Was almost pallid as my own.

But this is worse than vain Farewell!
    Of Heaven now I only crave
For thee all of life's happiness,
    And for myself an early grave! ⁠L. E. L.