File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 13, page 17 (newspaper clipping), ca. 1860.jpg

Transcription:

PASSION PAST.

———

Were I a boy, with a boy’s heart-beat

At glimpse of her passing down the street,

Or a room where she had entered and gone,

Or a page her hand was written on—

Would all be with me as it was before?

Oh no, never! no, no, never!

Never any more.

Were I a man, with a man’s pulse-throb,

Breath hard and fierce, held down like a sob,

Dumb, yet hearing her lightest word—

Blind, until only her garments stirred—

Would I pour my life like wine on her floor?

No, no, never! never, never!

Never any more.

Gray and withered, wrinkled and marred,

I have gone through the fire and come out unscarred,

With the image of manhood upon me yet,

No shame to remember, no wish to forget;

But could she rekindle the pangs I bore?—

Oh no, never! Thank God, never!

Never anymore.

Old and withered, withered and gray—

And yet if her light step passed to-day,

I should see her face all faces among,

And say: “Heaven loves thee, whom I loved Long!

Thou hast lost the key of my heart’s door,

Lost it ever, and forever—

Aye, and for evermore.”

MISS MULOCH.