Absence

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After you went away, our lovely room
Seemed like a casket whence the soul had fled.
I stood in awful and appalling gloom,
The world was empty and all joy seemed dead.

I think I felt as one might feel who knew
That Death had left him on the earth alone.
For all the world to my fond heart means you;
And there is nothing left when you are gone.

Each way I turned my sad, tear-blinded gaze,
I found fresh torture to augment my grief;
Some new reminder of the perfect days
We passed together, beautiful as brief.

There lay a pleasing book that we had read --
And there your latest gift; and everywhere
Some tender act, some loving word you said,
Seemed to take form and mock at my despair.

All happiness that human heart may know
I find with you; and when you go away,
Those hours become a winding-sheet of woe,
And make a ghastly phantom of To-day.