Alone In The House

I am all alone in the house to-night;          They would not have gone away     Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight          I have held with my heart to-day.     With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain          I have battled hour by hour;     But the fates have willed that the strife is vain.     Alone in the hour my thoughts have reign,          And I yield myself to their power.     Yield myself to the old time charm          Of a dream of vanished bliss,     The thrill of a voice, and the fold of an arm,          And a red lip's lingering kiss.     It all comes back like a flowing tide;          That brief, but beautiful day.     Though it oft is checked by the dam of pride,     Till the waters flow back to the other side,          To-night it has broken away.     I gave you all that I had to give,          O love, the lavish whole.     And you threw it away, and now I live          A starved and beggared soul.     And I feed on crumbs that memory throws          From her table over-filled,     And I lay awake when others repose,     And slake my thirst when no one knows,          With the wine that she has spilled.     I go my way and I do my part          In the world's great scene of strife,     But I do it all with an empty heart,          Dead to the best of life.     And ofttimes weary and tempest tossed,          When I am not ruled by pride,     I wish ere the die was throne and lost,     Ere I played for love without counting the cost,          That I, like my heart, had died.