Juniata Sentinel And Republican

SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE

Sweetheart, good-bye! Our varied day
Is closing into twilight gray,
And up from bare, bleak wastes of sea
The storm-wind rises mournfully;
A mystic prescience, strange and drear,
Doth haunt the shuddering twilight air;
It fills the earth, it chills the sky—
Sweetheart, good-bye!

Sweetheart, good-bye! Our joys are past,
And night with silence comes at last—
Old things must end—yea, even love—
Nor know we if re-born above.
The heart-blooms of our earthly prime
Shall bloom beyond those bounds of time,
"Ah! death alone is sure," we cry—
Sweetheart, good-bye!

Sweetheart, good-bye! Through mist and tears
Pass the pale phantoms of our years,
Once bright with spring, or subtly strong
When summer's noontide thrilled with song;
Now wan, wild-eyed, forlornly bowed,
Each ravless as an autumn cloud
Fading on dull September's sky—
Sweetheart, good-bye!

Sweetheart, good-bye! The vapors roll'd
Across yon distant, darkening wold,
Are types of what our world doth know
Of tenderest loves of long ago;
And thus when all is done and said,
Our life lived out, our passions dead,
What can their wavering record be
But tinted mists of memory?
Oh! clasp and kiss me ere we die—
Sweetheart, good-bye!