AMARANTH 
We meet in Paradise. 
“I have been true to thee! though brightest forms 
Of human beauty spring up in my way, 
Yet still the flame lit on thine altar warms 
And purifies my heart. Onward I stray— 
And see the lover’s altar-place decay— 
Unto some other idol turns his eyes, 
Forgetting that which o’er him held such sway; 
And I look upward to the far-off skies, 
And know thou wait’st for me in Paradise! 
“I have been true to thee! In summer eves, 
Alone I sit beneath the clustering vine, 
And listen to the whispering of the leaves; 
I watch the stars like angel faces shine, 
And think the softest ones resemble thine! 
Shall I not know thee when I reach the place 
Where angels make their home? Is there no sigh? 
Is there not left with thee some well-known grace, 
By which the long-lost loved one I may trace ? 
“Yes! I shall know thee by thy gentle voice, 
If I should pass the gates of Eden blind; 
No tones but thine could make my heart rejoice, 
None else its deepest chords could ever find! 
Oh! tell me not that we shall leave behind 
The power of recognition; ’twere to make 
The Parent of our every good unkind! 
Oh! this would be from many a soul to take 
Lone-cherished hopes—the links of heaven to break! 
“I have been true to thee! I sit beside 
Life’s stream a patient watcher, until He 
Shall summon me to cross its foamy tide, 
A welcome summons, which shall make me free, 
And take the exiled one to home and thee! 
I shall have passed life’s sorrowing ordeal through, 
But as a troubled dream ’twill seem to be! 
And, as we meet, through heaven’s high dome of blue 
The welcome words shall swell, ‘I have been true!’ ” 
