Never to Know - Isa (Craig) Knox

One within in a crimson glow,
        Silently sitting;
One without on the falling snow,
        Wearily flitting;
        Never to know
That one looked out with yearning sighs,
While one looked in with wistful eyes,
        And went unwitting.

What came of the one without, that so
        Wearily wended?
Under the stars and under the snow
        His journey ended!
        Never to know
That the answer came to those wistful eyes,
But passed away in those yearning sighs,
        With night winds blended.

What came of the one within, that so
        Yearned forth with sighing?
More sad, to my thinking, her fate, the glow
        Drearily dying;
        Never to know
That for a moment her lite was nigh,
And she knew it not and it passed her by,
        Recall denying.

These were two hearts that long ago—
        Dreaming and waking—
Each to a poet revealed its woe,
        Wasting and breaking;
        Never to know
That if each to other had but done so,
Both had rejoiced in the crimson glow,
And one had not lain—neath the stars and snow
        Forsaken—forsaking!

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Isa (Craig) Knox (1831–1903) Scotland
Source: Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Alfred H. Miles. London: George Routledge & Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1907