O SILENT my sister, who stands by my side at the shore, <br />Back gazing with me on those waves which we mortals call years, <br />That rose, grew, and threatened, and climaxed, and broke, and were o'er, <br />While we still sit watching and watching, our cheeks free from tears-- <br />O sister, with looks so familiar, yet strange, flitting by, <br />Say, say, hast thou been to those dead years as faithful as I? <br /> <br />Have they cast at thy feet also, jewels and whitening bones, <br />Gold, silver, and wreck-wood, dank sea-weed and treasures of cost? <br />Hast thou buried thy dead, sought thy jewels 'midst shingle and stones, <br />And learnt how the lost is the found, and the found is the lost? <br />Or stood with clear eyes upturned placid 'twixt sorrow and mirth, <br />As asking deep questions that cannot be answered on earth?-- <br /> <br />I know not. Who knoweth? Our own souls we scarcely do know, <br />And none knows his brother's. Who judges, contemns, or bewails, <br />Or mocketh, or praiseth? In this world's strange vanishing show, <br />The one truth is loving. O sister, the dark cloud that veils <br />All life, lets this rift through to glorify future and past. <br />'Love ever--love only--love faithfully--love to the last.'<br /><br />Dinah Maria Mulock Craik<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/eudoxia-third-picture/
