This is Man's saying ! Impotent to move
One spheric star above,
Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love,
With his “no more’" and “once.”
How say ye, “ We loved once,”
Blasphemers? Is your earth not cold enow,
Mourners, without that snow?
Ah, sweetest friend, and would ye wrong me so?
And would ye say of me whose heart is known,
Whose prayers have met your own;
Whose tears have fallen for you; whose smile
hath shone,
Your words—"We loved her once?’’
Could ye “we loved her once’’
Say cold of me, w hen dwelling out of sight?
When happier friends aright
(Not truer) stand between me and your light?
When, like a flower kept too long in the shade,
Ye find my colors fade,
And all that is not love in me decayed,
Say ye, “we loved her once?”
Will ye, “we loved her once”
Say after, when the bearers leave the door?
When having murmured o’er
My last “oh say it not,” I epeak no more?
Not so—not then—fees/ then! when life is
shriven,
And death's full joy is given,—
Of those who sit and love you up in Heaven,
Say not, “wa loved them once.”
Say never, "wo loved once,”
God is too near above—the grave below:
And all our moments go
Too quickly past our souls for saying so.
