Too Late

TOO LATE
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What silence we keep year after year,
With those who are most near tous and dear;
We live beside each other day by day
And speak of myraid things, but sel- dom say
The full, sweet word that lies just in our reach,
Beneath the commonplace of common speech

Then out of sight and out of reach they go-
These close familiar friends who loved us so;
And, sitting in the shadow they have left,
Alone, with loneliness, and soro be- reft
We think with vain regret of some fond word
That one we might have said and they have heard

For weak and poor the love that wo express
Now seems beside the vast, sweet un- expressed,
And silght the deeds we did to those undone,
And small the service spent to treas- ures won,
And underserved the praise for word and deed
That should have overflowed the sim-ple need

This is the cuel cross of life, to be
Full visioned only when the ministry
Of death has been fulfilled and in the place
some dear presene is but empty space
What recollected service can then
Give consolation for the might have been