Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Songs in Minor Keys (1884). V. Good-nightChristina Catherine Fraser-Tytler (Mrs. Edward Liddell) (1848 )
I
I have clasped the hands on the quiet breast.
Draw back the curtain, let in the light,
She will never shrink if it be too bright.
No streak was then in the midnight sky;
Now I am one to watch the day
Come glimmering up from the far away.
Waked by the city’s morning din,
Hoping to find and fearing to know
The sorrow he left but an hour ago?
When he shall find who has come and gone?
Come a watcher that will not bide
Love’s morning or noon or eventide.
But God has thought to take her away.
What will he say? God knows, not I;
“Good night,” he said, but never “good bye.”