Nay, you wrong her, my friend, she’s not fickle; her love she has
simply outgrown;
One can read the whole matter, translating her heart by the light
of one’s own.
Can you bear me to talk with you frankly? There is much that my
heart would say,
And you know we were children together, have quarreled and “made up”
in play.
And so, for the sake of old friendship, I venture to tell you the
truth,
As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our earlier
youth.
Five summers ago, when you wooed her, you stood on the self-same
plane,
Face to face, heart to heart, never dreaming your souls could be
parted again.
She loved you at that time entirely, in the bloom of her life’s
early May,
And it is not her fault, I repeat it, that she does not love you
to-day.
Nature never stands still, nor souls either. They ever go up or go
down;
And hers has been steadily soaring,—but how has it been with your
own?
She has struggled, and yearned, and aspired,—grown stronger and
wiser each year;
The stars are not farther above you, in yon luminous atmosphere!
For she whom you crowned with fresh roses, down yonder, five
summers ago,
Has learned that the first of our duties to God and ourselves is
to grow.
Her eyes they are sweeter and calmer, but their vision is clearer
as well;
Her voice has a tenderer cadence, but it rings like a silver bell.
Her face has the look worn by those who with God and his angels have
talked;
The white robes she wears are less white than the spirits with whom
she has walked.
And you? Have you aimed at the highest? Have you, too, aspired and
prayed?
Have you looked upon evil unsullied? have you conquered it
undismayed?
Have you, too, grown stronger and wiser, as the months and the years
have rolled on?
Did you meet her this morning rejoicing in the triumph of victory
won?
Nay, hear me! The truth cannot harm you. When to-day in her presence
you stood,
Was the hand that you gave her as white and clean as that of her
womanhood?
Go measure yourself by her standard. Look back on the years that
have fled;
Then ask, if you need, why she tells you that the love of her
girlhood is dead!
She cannot look down to her lover; her love, like her soul, aspires;
He must stand by her side, or above her, who would kindle its holy
fires.
Now, farewell! For the sake of old friendship I have ventured to
tell you the truth,
As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our earlier
youth.