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Home  »  Yale Book of American Verse  »  155 Alas!

Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838–1915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912.

Phoebe Cary 1824–1871

Phoebe Cary

155 Alas!

SINCE, if you stood by my side to-day,

Only our hands could meet,

What matter that half the weary world

Lies between our feet;

That I am here by the lonesome sea,

You by the pleasant Rhine?—

Our hearts were just as far apart

If I held your hand in mine!

Therefore, with never a backward glance,

I leave the past behind;

And standing here by the sea alone,

I give it to the wind.

I give it all to the cruel wind,

And I have no word to say;

Yet, alas! to be as we have been,

And to be as we are to-day!