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My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 

I stare into the void of darkness around me

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

The bottle of wine, half empty, half gone.

One minute pastp and Lethe-wards had sunk: 

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

Am I happy? Now that he is gone? Now that my pain should be over?

But being too happy in thine happiness,—

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

Outside my window, a nightingale croons a lullaby and I am taken back in time.

To hours spent laughing in false joy, so in love, so far from reality itself.

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

singest of summer in full-throated ease.

The summer breeze, his favorite season, floats past the window and I fall to my knees.

Oh, but how my heart seized with every breath, for now, he is gone.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath  been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

I wonder what he would be doing. Would he be with her? Surely as he loved her. So true was his love, shining out from his soul. And I would smile, laugh, pretend. 

 Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

Would I have attended their wedding? Watched their children grow? No, surely not. Yes, I would have sailed far away. To a place where I could pretend that every word he wrote had been for me. Every smile was an effect and I the cause. 

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

I pick up the discarded bottle and stare into the depths of the liquid, hoping to drown out my sorrows 'till morning. Wishing I could disappear. 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

I laugh once, a dull sound. How could I have been so naive? How could I have believed that he would ever see me as he did her? And yet I let my heart be captured by him. He who called me friend and her lover. Her who never knew his secrets, his deepest dreams, his every breath. Her, whom when he left, sought me for comfort. Begged me for truth. Her who I sent away in my own grief.

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;  

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

I sigh as I look back to the moon. It shines in what seems like sorrow. The night is silent. The Nightingale gone, and all of my dreams crushed to dust by cold reality. 

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

My heart in pieces, my breath short and unstable, I gaze out to the night. I want him here, back with me where he belonged. Before she came along to take him. She who believed he was hers. She who believed she deserved his gentle soul. She who killed him with her love.

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry  Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

And yet, I know that even if she had never entered our lives, I would never have had him as mine. For he was too gentle, his love too good, his spirit too pure. For I am surely the Devil's right hand, if I wish death and defeat upon her now. What kind of woman am I? One who is broken hearted? Surely not. One who is good? No, I am defeated, alone, forgotten in their grief.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover'd  up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

As I breathe in clean air and let the bottle shatter I know. 

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

I was never meant to feel his love. To listen to his words, feel his breath, his love, his devotion.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

I am grateful I am alone, no one here to see my devastation. To hear my cries for mercy. My pleas for redemption.                

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still w ouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

To thy high requiem become a sod.

I wish I was a bird, that I could fly away from my misery here. That I could never see her face again and hear his name fall from her lips. That I could be free.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Perhaps the worst of it is to see the truth, of his love for her in all the letters he sent. I remember the butterflies, the poems, never for me.

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd  to do, deceiving elf.

I look to the sky and smile. Goodbye, my love. I shall see you again.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now ' tis  buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

I raise a hand and knock twice. My parasol is shaking so I place it towards the ground. I must remain steady for this. It is imperative she never knows.

Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 

Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

"Yes, Fanny. May I come in?"