Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AGNES LILIENKRON, THE FORSAKEN. TO the sea-shore ? Down by the bay ? Tomorrow ? Going so soon ? Oh to watch the silent ships asleep in the midnight moon ! Oh to hear the dip of an oar and the grating of a keel And the sound of a step on the shore that my waiting heart could feel! Have I ever been there ? Yes, once,—years ago !—I learned by heart Every turn and wind of the shore !—your pardon, sir!—tears will start, But you seemed so kindly, sir,—to have a heart somewhere— That I trusted you,—couldn't help it—'twas your face, sir, and manly air,— And I could have loved you—madly—but I have no heart, sir, here !— It's down there, down by the sea-shore, dead, dead this many a year ! Dead ? As good as dead, though it throbs and throbs in its endless pain! He's there !—the lord of my life !—was there— whom I'll never see again I Perchance he is gone—gone again—and another widowed heart Is broken and crazed like mine!—Tomorrow, you say, you start ? Perhaps you will meet him ! And then, will you bear him a message from me, And tell him I love him still, and pine for the moonlit sea, And the boat that used to glide like a dream on the rising tide Far out on the evening bay—and he was by my side !-— You will think me frail, I know, but I'd sell my hopes of heaven To lie in his arms tonight—nor ask to be forgiven If only the day never dawned to tear me away from him !— I'd rather be tortured, or burned, or severed limb from limb !— Oh the exquisite bliss of yielding to his impassioned will! Oh the clasp of his mighty arms—I can feel them holding me still! Oh the kiss that sent the blood flood-tiding up to the lips And coursing and thrilling and tingling from the heart to the finger-tips ! You'...