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.

Not 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.

From "Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe" 1830