Louisa Stuart Costello - The Past

Oh! how sad the recollection! in the midst of joy it
springs;
What a train of faded pleasures that fond idea brings!
All those hours are gone for ever—they were sweet, but
pass'd away
Like the sunny clouds that vanish in the midst of dying
day.

I have number'd all the sorrows this tortured heart has
known;
I have counted each delight I would ever call my own;
But the moments are so woven, that the guiding clew is
gone,
And the sorrow and the pleasure blended into one.

That one—oh! when we parted, it was glittering in that
tear;
That one—'twas in the accents that told we both were
dear:


It dwelt in those fond glances, too fleet, too early past;
It lived in that embrace—the tenderest—the last!

The last! oh, in that word there are ages of despair!
No summer thought of brightness can dwell untroubled
there;
Yet my soul was in that moment so fraught with joy and
pain,
And ' tis only recollection can give back the soul again!

Louisa Stuart Costello

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-past-5/