Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Poems, Lyrics, and Sonnets (1882). IV. Am I to Lose You?

Louisa S. Guggenberger (1845–1895)

“AM I to lose you now?” The words were light;

You spoke them, hardly seeking a reply,

That day I bid you quietly “Good-bye,”

And sought to hide my soul away from sight.

The question echoed, dear, through many a night,—

My question, not your own—most wistfully;

“Am I to lose him?”—asked my heart of me;

“Am I to lose him now, and lose him quite?”

And only you can tell me. Do you care

That sometimes we in quietness should stand

As fellow-solitudes, hand firm in hand,

And thought with thought and hope with hope compare?

What is your answer? Mine must ever be,

“I greatly need your friendship: leave it me.”