| |
| RETURN, return! all night my lamp is burning, | |
| All night, like it, mỳ wide eyes watch and burn; | |
| Like it, I fade and pale, when day returning | |
| Bears witness that the absent can return, | |
| Return, return. | 5 |
| |
| Like it, I lessen with a lengthening sadness, | |
| Like it, I burn to waste and waste to burn, | |
| Like it, I spend the golden oil of gladness | |
| To feed the sorrowy signal for return, | |
| Return, return. | 10 |
| |
| Like it, like it, whene’er the east wind sings, | |
| I bend and shake; like it, I quake and yearn, | |
| When Hope’s late butterflies, with whispering wings, | |
| Fly in out of the dark, to fall and burn— | |
| Burn in the watchfire of return, | 15 |
| Return, return. | |
| |
| Like it, the very flame whereby I pine | |
| Consumes me to its nature. While I mourn | |
| My soul becomes a better soul than mine, | |
| And from its brightening beacon I discern | 20 |
| My starry love go forth from me, and shine | |
| Across the seas a path for thy return, | |
| Return, return. | |
| |
| Return, return! all night I see it burn, | |
| All night it prays like me, and lifts a twin | 25 |
| Of palmèd praying hands that meet and yearn— | |
| Yearn to the impleaded skies for thy return. | |
| Day, like a golden fetter, locks them in, | |
| And wans the light that withers, tho’ it burn | |
| As warmly still for thy return; | 30 |
| Still thro’ the splendid load uplifts the thin | |
| Pale, paler, palest patience that can learn | |
| Naught but that votive sign for thy return— | |
| That single suppliant sign for thy return, | |
| Return, return. | 35 |
| |
| Return, return! lest haply, love, or e’er | |
| Thou touch the lamp the light have ceased to burn, | |
| And thou, who thro’ the window didst discern | |
| The wonted flame, shalt reach the topmost stair | |
| To find no wide eyes watching there, | 40 |
| No wither’d welcome waiting thy return! | |
| A passing ghost, a smoke-wreath in the air, | |
| The flameless ashes, and the soulless urn, | |
| Warm with the famish’d fire that lived to burn— | |
| Burn out its lingering life for thy return, | 45 |
| Its last of lingering life for thy return, | |
| Its last of lingering life to light thy late return, | |
| Return, return. | |
| |
