Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Problem
By Charlotte Fiske Bates (18381916)[Born in New York, N. Y., 1838. Died in Cambridge, Mass., 1916. From Risk, and Other Poems. 1879.]
T
Within an hour the life of months repeat;
Then come to silence, as if each had poured
Into the other’s keeping all his hoard.
Each inly wonders why he says no more.
Why, since they meet, does mutual need seem small,
And what avails the presence after all?
The heart finds every meeting incomplete;
And with the dearest there must sometimes be
The wide and lonely silence of the sea.