Four Footprints

Here are the tracks upon the sand

Where stood last evening she and I -

Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;

The morning sun has baked them dry.

I kissed her wet face--wet with rain,

For arid grief had burnt up tears,

While reached us as in sleeping pain

The distant gurgling of the weirs.

"I have married him--yes; feel that ring;

'Tis a week ago that he put it on . . .

A dutiful daughter does this thing,

And resignation succeeds anon!

"But that I body and soul was yours

Ere he'd possession, he'll never know.

He's a confident man. 'The husband scores,'

He says, 'in the long run' . . . Now, Dear, go!"

I went. And to-day I pass the spot;

It is only a smart the more to endure;

And she whom I held is as though she were not,

For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.