Lorena.

Lorena.
377.4

The years creep slowly by, Lorena, the snow is on the ground again.
The sun’s low down the sky, Lorena, the frost gleams where the flowers have been:
But the heart throbs on as warmly now as when the summer days were nigh:
Oh, the sun can never dip so low adown affection’s cloudless sky.

A hundred months have passed, Lorena, since last I held your hand in mine,
And felt your pulse beat fast, Lorena, but mine beat faster far than thine.
An hundred months, ’twas flowery May, when up the hilly slope we climbed
To watch the dying of the day and bear the distant church bells chime.

We loved each other then, Lorena, more than we ever dared to tell.
And what might we have been, Lorena, had but our loving prospered well:
I would not cause thee one regret to rankle in your bosom now.
For if we try we may forget, were words of thine long years ago.

Yes, these were words of thine. Lorena: they burn within my memory yet,
They touch some tender chords, Lorena, which thrill and tremble with regret.
But then ’tis past, the years are gone, I’ll not call back their shadowy form:
I’ll say to those lost years, sleep on, sleep on, nor heed life’s pelting storm.

The story of the past. Lorena, ains! I care not to repeat
The hopes that could not last, Lorena: they live but only live to cheat.
‘Twas not thy woman heart that spoke, that heart was always true to me:
A duty stern and pressing broke the the which iinked my soul with thee.

It matters little now. Lorena, the past is in the eternal past.
Our heads will soon lite Now. Lorena, life’s tide is ebbing out so fast:
There is a future. O, thank God: of life this is so small a part,
‘Tis dust to dust beneath the sod, but there, up there, ’tis heart to heart.