Poems (Odom)/Introspection

INTROSPECTION.

Is it a crime that I love him,
A sin that I think of him still,
A shame if his image still haunts me
Forever against my will?
God knows I have tried to forget him,
Have struggled to turn from the past,
But it seems that the spell of his spirit
About all my being is cast.

A spell that I never have broken—
Try ever so hard as I may;—
They told me I soon would forget him,
God help me! I love him to-day.
And yet it is years since we parted,
That far away evening in spring;
Long years since I gave him his letters
And took from my finger his ring.

I had wept as I knelt to my father
And pled for my lover that day;
But coldly he said, as he left me,
A daughter of his should obey.
That evening at twilight we parted;
My life caught the tinge of its gray,
The sunshine went from me forever,
The shadow lies on me to-day.

Years passed and I wedded to please them,
As many a daughter will do—
With one who had loved me in childhood,
A man who was noble and true.
For years we have lived on together,
And children hang round on my chair:
A boy with dark eyes like his mother,
A girl with her father's bright hair.

But oft when the sunlight has faded,
And shadows creep over the sky,
I dream of the love that was buried
But never, no never, could die.
It lies like a shrouded immortelle,
Craped over with snowy regret;
And though it shall never awaken,
I know I can never forget.