O the years I lost before I knew you, <br />Love! <br />O, the hills I climbed and came not to you, <br />Love! <br />Ah! who shall render unto us to make <br />Us glad <br />The things which for and of each other's sake <br />We might have had? <br /> <br />If you and I had sat and played together, <br />Love, <br />Two speechless babes in the summer weather, <br />Love, <br />By one sweet brook which, though it dried up long <br />Ago, <br />Still makes for me today a sweeter song <br />Than all I know- <br /> <br />If hand-in-hand through the mysterious gateway, <br />Love <br />Of womanhood, we had first looked and straightway, <br />Love, <br />Had whispered to each other softly, ere <br />It yet <br />Was dawn, what now in noonday heat and fear <br />We both forget- <br /> <br />If all of this had given its completeness, <br />Love, <br />To every hour, would it be added sweetness, <br />Love? <br />Or ill <br />With thee? One wish could I more sweetly tell, <br />More swift fulfill? <br /> <br />Ah, vainly thus I sit and dream and ponder, <br />Love, <br />Losing the precious present while I wonder, <br />Love, <br />About the days in which you grew and came <br />To be <br />So beautiful, and did not know the name <br />Or sight of me. <br /> <br />But all lost things are in the angel's keeping, <br />Love; <br />No past is dead for us, but only sleeping, <br />Love; <br />The years of heaven will all earth's little pain <br />Make good, <br />Together there we can begin again, <br />In babyhood.<br /><br />Helen Hunt Jackson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-last-30/
