Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead,--
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium flower,
Beginning to die, too, in the glass.
Little has yet been changed, I think,--
The shutters are shut, no light may pass,
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name,--
It was not her time to love: beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares;
And now was quiet, now astir,--
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?
What! your soul was pure and true;
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew,--
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals,--naught beside?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love,--
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed, it may be, for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few,--
Much is to learn and much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come--at last it will--
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red,--
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.
I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me,--
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;
My heart seemed full as it could hold,--
There was space and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep,--
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.
There, that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
_Robert Browning._
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