第73章 A PARTING

Without one bitter feeling let us part -

And for the years in which your love has shed A radiance like a glory round my head,I thank you,yes,I thank you from my heart.

I thank you for the cherished hope of years,A starry future,dim and yet divine,Winging its way from Heaven to be mine,Laden with joy,and ignorant of tears.

I thank you,yes,I thank you even more That my heart learnt not without love to live,But gave and gave,and still had more to give,From an abundant and exhaustless store.

I thank you,and no grief is in these tears;

I thank you,not in bitterness but truth,For the fair vision that adorned my youth And glorified so many happy years.

Yet how much more I thank you that you tore At length the veil your hand had woven away,Which hid my idol was a thing of clay,And false the altar I had knelt before.

I thank you that you taught me the stern truth,(None other could have told and I believed,)That vain had been my life,and I deceived,And wasted all the purpose of my youth.

I thank you that your hand dashed down the shrine,Wherein my idol worship I had paid;Else had I never known a soul was made To serve and worship only the Divine.

I thank you that the heart I cast away On such as you,though broken,bruised and crushed,Now that its fiery throbbing is all hushed,Upon a worthier altar I can lay.

I thank you for the lesson that such love Is a perverting of God's royal right,That it is made but for the Infinite,And all too great to live except above.

I thank you for a terrible awaking,And if reproach seemed hidden in my pain,And sorrow seemed to cry on your disdain,Know that my blessing lay in your forsaking.

Farewell for ever now:-in peace we part;

And should an idle vision of my tears Arise before your soul in after years -Remember that I thank you from my heart!