A YOUNG fair girl among her flowers, <br />And, as to blossoms born in May, <br />Her morrows still brought sunnier hours <br />Than made up sunny yesterday. <br />She did but wait: 'Hope is so sweet; <br />We love so well, my love and I; <br />The hours that come, the hours that fleet, <br />End all in one glad by and by.' <br /> <br />A pale worn woman, scarcely sad, <br />But tired, like those who, too long pent, <br />Forget the joy they have not had <br />Of the free winds, and droop content. <br />She did but wait: 'Ah, no, to me <br />The silent hope is never dead; <br />What are the days that are to be <br />But part of the dear days long fled?' <br /> <br />He came: 'The wealth we need is mine; <br />And now?' 'Alas!' she said, 'in vain. <br />The love I love is noway thine, <br />I wait who never comes again. <br />Oh, for my lover of old days, <br />We two from all the world apart! <br />I must go lone on earth's bleak ways, <br />He is not now save in my heart.' <br /> <br />He wed another. She, alone, <br />Patient and weary, toiled for bread. <br />And bygone still was never gone, <br />The silent hope was never dead. <br />She did but wait: 'I have the past; <br />The new days live the old days o'er, <br />And there abides until the last <br />The by and by that was before.'<br /><br />Augusta Davies Webster<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/waiting-368/
