Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/468

 SELF AND LIFE.

HANGEFUL comrade, Life of mine,

Before we two must part,

I will tell thee, thou shalt say,

What thou hast been and art.

Ere I lose my hold of thee

Justify thyself to me.

I was thy warmth upon thy mother's knee

When light and love within her eyes were one:

We laughed together by the laurel-tree,

Culling warm daisies 'neath the sloping sun;

We heard the chickens' lazy croon,

Where the trellised woodbines grew,

And all the summer afternoon

Mystic gladness o'er thee threw.

Was it person? Was it thing?

Was it touch or whispering?

It was bliss and it was I:

Bliss was what thou knew'st me by.

Soon I knew thee more by Fear

And sense of what was not,

Haunting all I held most dear;

I had a double lot:

Ardor, cheated with alloy,

Wept the more for dreams of joy.