If love had found me in cold cheerless ways
And led me forth into the light;—if bloom
Of sweet and sudden flowers, instead of gloom
In the long nights and unillumined days,
Thy love had brought me;—then at love’s high praise
I had not so much wondered;—if the doom
Of pitiless destiny had given room
To thy bright presence,—then in swift amaze
I were less awed than now. No life could be
More sweet than that past life of mine, I thought;
And when the changing years in fulness brought
Another life enriched by love and thee,
That all my beautiful past should seem as naught,—
This is the miracle Love wrought for me!