Not yet, not yet. Ah! let me gaze once more
Into those eyes, those earnest truthful eyes,
A little while, and then my dream is o’er;
And I, a wanderer under alien skies,
Shall see thy face no more, nor hear thy low replies.
See, in the west, the sun grows broad and red;
His golden glory rests upon thy brow,
And makes a halo round thy down-bent head,
And glimmers o’er thy soft dark locks that flow
In waves of light above, in waves of shade below.
That setting sun will rise again in might,
Will dry the tears the sorrowing night hath shed;
Will wake the world to gladness and to light.
What sun, the summer of the heart once fled,
Can brighten into spring its winter, cold and dead?
The red light fades: go forth upon thy way
Thro’ the dim eve, and leave me here alone;
A deeper night than follows after day
Will darken o’er my soul when thou art gone—
A night no wakening dawn will ever rise upon.