From Harper's Magazine, Volume 43, No. 256 (New York: Harper & Brothers, Sept., 1871), page 510:

^^
LOVING, BUT UNLOVED.
Francis Behrynge*

Out from his palace home
He came to my cottage door:
Few were his looks and words,
But they linger for evermore.
The smile of his sad blue eyes
Was tender as smile could be;
Yet I was nothing to him,
Though he was the world to me!

Fair was the bride he won,
Yet her heart was never his own:
Her beauty he had and held,
But his spirit was ever alone.
I would have been his slave,
With a kiss for my life-long fee;
But I was nothing to him,
While he was the world to me!

To-day, in his stately home,
On a flower-strewn bier he lies,
With the drooping lids fast closed
O'er the beautiful sad blue eyes.
And among the mourners who mourn
I may not a mourner be;
For I was nothing to him,
Though he was the world to me!

How will it be with our souls
When they meet in the better land?
What the mortal could never know,
Will the spirit yet understand?
Or, in some celestial form,
Must the sorrow repeated be,
And I be nothing to him,
While he dims heaven for me?


[* The author's name is given in the table of contents, page vii.]