To M......

O! I care not that my earthly lot
Hath — little of Earth in it —
That years of love have been forgot
In the fever of a minute —

I heed not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I —
But that you meddle with my fate
Who am a passer-by.

It is not that my founts of bliss
Are gushing — strange! with tears —
Or that the thrill of a single kiss
Hath palsied many years — ­

’Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs
Which have wither’d as they rose
Lie dead on my heart-strings
With the weight of an age of snows.

Nor that the grass — O! may it thrive!
On my grave is growing or grown —
But that, while I am dead yet alive
I cannot be, lady, alone.

Edgar Allan Poe