EX ANIMO.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 5, 1 February 1900, Page 11

EX ANIMO.

Oh ! do not urge So many reasons why 'tis best to part ; How, loved you ever, have you now the heart To offer reasons where they cannot live ? None for your love you'd give, Then why one now ? — 0 bitterness of the most voiceless surge That peace will not allow. It is enough To say that now you love not, who have loved ; To say that now I move not, who have moved Your heart to bend round mine and clasp it near. It is enough, that here Is not your place. But why, oh ! why such cruel, cold rebuff, Such blow on love's dear face ? Might I but ask If love too gladly given is too cold r And yet you wooed me in those days of old As feai'ful as you dreaded I were lost : Too great ? — too slight ? — the cost, Do I fall short? Oh ! set me any labour, any task To please you as I ought. I would subdue My heart its dearest wish to please your eye, Yet, lost love ; then the hope for you must die, Since that is yet the dearest that I hold !

To my breast I'd enfold The viper ghast, — Ah ! might I know 'twould lift me up to you, Again loved at the last. But do not plead Such bare cold reasons for the death of love. Yours vows to quieten him did hotly move And breathed swift life into bis very bones : Into the cold dead stones He will not sink : His broken cry is there no heart to heed, Tottering on the brink ? If dark before His sleep was, ere awakened by your voice To throbbing life, scarcely his own of choice, How dark the gloom he now must stumble thro', Guided thereto by you — Too all alone. It breaks my heart to think that nevermore My soul may know its own. Yet, go thy way. Thy path would be no smoother laid by mine; My own, its course I cannot well divine. Thy lips can only swear the truth away, — Oh ! sweet- voiced once were they ; All is undone. Come, come! 0 heart, my heart ! — how sweet you say That doubt and love are one ! Johannes C, Andersen.