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"This is a destiny
which may be thine -
The common grief: God willed it should be mine:
Short was the course our happy love had run,
And hard it was to say 'Thy will be done!'
"Yet those whom man, not God, hath parted, know
A heavier pang, a more enduring woe;
No softening memory mingles with their tears,
Still the wound rankles on through dreary years,
Still the heart feels, in bitterest hours of blame,
It dares not curse the long-familiar name;
Still, vainly free, through many a cheerless day,
From weaker ties turns helplessly away,
Sick for the smiles that blessed its home of yore,
The natural joys of life that come no more;
And, all bewildered by the abyss, whose gloom
Dark and impassable as is the tomb,
Lies stretched between the future and the past, -
Sinks into deep and cold despair at last.
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