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Home  »  Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century  »  Mathilde Blind (1841–1896)

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Love in Exile (Songs). IV. (VII.) “Why will You Haunt me Unawares”

Mathilde Blind (1841–1896)

WHY will you haunt me unawares,

And walk into my sleep,

Pacing its shadowy thoroughfares,

Where long-dried perfume scents the airs,

While ghosts of sorrow creep,

Where on Hope’s ruined altarstairs,

With ineffectual beams,

The Moon of Memory coldly glares

Upon the land of dreams?

My yearning eyes were fain to look

Upon your hidden face;

Their love, alas! you could not brook,

But in your own you mutely took

My hand, and for a space

You wrung it till I throbbed and shook,

And woke with wildest moan

And wet face channelled like a brook

With your tears or my own.