Too Late

Had we but met in other days,Had we but loved in other ways,Another light and hope had shoneOn your life and my own.

In sweet but hopeless reveriesI fancy how your wistful eyesHad saved me, had I known their powerIn fate's imperious hour;

How loving you, beloved of God,And following you, the path I trodHad led me, through your love and prayers,To God's love unawares:

And how our beings joined as oneHad passed through checkered shade and sun,Until the earth our lives had given,With little change, to heaven.

God knows why this was not to be.You bloomed from childhood far from me.The sunshine of the favoured placeThat knew your youth and grace.

And when your eyes, so fair and free,In fearless beauty beamed on me,I knew the fatal die was thrown,My choice in life was gone.

And still with wild and tender artYour child-love touched my torpid heart,Gilding the blackness where it fell,Like sunlight over hell.

In vain, in vain! my choice was gone!Better to struggle on aloneThan blot your pure life's blameless shineWith cloudy stains of mine.

A vague regret, a troubled prayer,And then the future vast and fairWill tempt your young and eager eyesWith all its glad surprise.

And I shall watch you, safe and far,As some late traveller eyes a starWheeling beyond his desert sandsTo gladden happier lands.