Part 6 — LOVE UNREQUITED.

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BY ALICE G. LEE.

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A sister’s quiet love

Stirs my heart for thee,

Ask me for none other,

For it paineth me.

Schiller’s Ballads.

I can but listen to thy words in sorrow⁠—

Words that are poured from a full, bursting heart.

Thou couldst not thus the form of passion borrow;

I know thou dost not act a studied part.

For even now thine eyes, so true and earnest,

Are seeking mine with such a pleading look;

And as that searching gaze on me thou turnest,

I know that falsehood thou couldst never brook.

Yet I could almost wish deceit were dwelling

Within the soul laid bare before me now,

That false, false words within thy breast were swelling,

That I might read it on thy pallid brow.

Or rather, that thou deemedst true and stainless

The vows that have just trembled to mine ear;

If then thy love could pass away all painless,

And leave thee much of hope for gloomy fear.

I did not dream that love so high and holy

Was nursed so long in silence; and for me!

My heart is far too humble, far too lowly,

To think that such a passion e’er could be.

I read within thine eyes the calm affection

A brother feels for one who, wild and weak,

Looks up to a strong arm for kind protection;

No other language did they seem to speak.

And when my hand was warmly grasped at meeting,

An answering pressure to thine own it gave.

I did not mark thy pulse was wildly beating;

How could I think from hopeless love to save?

And till I met this eve thy look so thrilling,

My spirit had not been by sorrow stirred;

But now with tears my heavy eyes are filling,

Tears, for the hopes which I this hour have heard.

For all the dreams thy soul so long hath cherished,

’Tis mine to bid them vanish at a sound,

—Would, rather, that my own high hopes had perished!

The spell of love not yet my heart has bound,

And ’twould be sin to claim thy high devotion,

When I could not return one half its worth;

For calmest friendship is the sole emotion

That for thee, brother! in that heart hath birth.