C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Impatience

ONLY to follow you, dearest, only to find you!

Only to feel for one instant the touch of your hand;

Only to tell you once of the love you left behind you,—

To say the world without you is like a desert of sand;

That the flowers have lost their perfume, the rose its splendor,

And the charm of nature is lost in a dull eclipse;

That joy went out with the glance of your eyes so tender,

And beauty passed with the lovely smile on your lips.

I did not dream it was you who kindled the morning,

And folded the evening purple in peace so sweet;

But you took the whole world’s rapture without a warning,

And left me naught save the print of your patient feet.

I count the days and the hours that hold us asunder;

I long for Death’s friendly hand which shall rend in twain,

With the glorious lightning flash and the golden thunder,

These clouds of the earth, and give me my own again!