Explore "Parted" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Oh, never a word he answered, / And never a word spake she! / They turned their faces each from each, / And looked upon the sea.
The hands that cannot clasp for life, / Must quickly severed be. / The love that is not large enough / To live eternally,
In true love's name, for fair love's fame, / Must die before its bloom; / For it, in all God's earth or heaven, / There is no garden-room.
Though all the wine of life be lost, / Try well the red grape's hue. / Holy the soul that cannot taste / The false love for the true.
And blessed aye the fainting heart / For such a thirst shall be -- / Yet never a word they spoke, and looked / Upon the bitter sea.