ECHO

Come to me in the silence of the night

Come in the speaking silence of a dream

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream

Come back in tears

O memory hope love of finished years

Oh dream how sweet too sweet too bitter sweet

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise

Where souls brim-full of love abide and meet

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening letting in lets out no more

Yet come to me in dreams that I may live

My very life again tho cold in death

Come back to me in dreams that I may give

Pulse for pulse breath for breath

Speak low lean low

As long ago my love how long ago

Christina Rossetti 1830-1894