Page:The Seaside and the Fireside.djvu/68



We sat and talked until the night, Descending, filled the little room; Our faces faded from the sight, Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it in too great excess.