My arms strain and become tired trying to be wings to carry them to
you: and I am glad of that weariness--it seems to be some virtue that has
gone out of me. If all my body could go out in the effort, I think I
should get a glimpse of your face, and the meaning of everything then at
last.
I have brought in a wild rose to lay here in love's cenotaph, among all
my thoughts of you. It comes from a graveyard full of "little deaths." I
remember once sending you a flower from the same place when love was
still fortunate with us. I must have been reckless in my happiness to do
that!
Beloved, if I could speak or write out all my thoughts, till I had
emptied myself of them, I feel that I should rest. But there is no
_emptying_ the brain by thinking. Things thought come to be thought
again over and over, and more and fresh come in their train: children
and grandchildren, generations of them, sprung from the old stock. I
have many thoughts now, born of my love for you, that never came when we
were together,--grandchildren of our days of courtship. Some of them are
set down here, but others escape and will never see your face!
If (poor word, it has the sound but no hope of a future life): still,
IF you should ever come back to me and want, as you would want,
to know something of the life in between,--I could put these letters
that I keep into your hands and trust them to say for me that no day
have I been truly, that is to say _willingly_, out of your heart.
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