Page 39 - Poetry-Romance

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

It was in the early summer when my love and I last parted;
She the sea-side sought, and left me in the city brokenhearted—
I to swelter through the summer, she on sea-kissed shores to wander;
But her last words gave me comfort: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
How I loved the little letters that from time to time she sent me!
As I read, it seemed that they a momentary sea-breeze lent me—
When she wrote of picnics, bathing, yachting trips; then bade me ponder
Well the truth of that old saying, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Oft she spoke of her admirers; how she made them dance attendance,
Made them carry books and baskets, and forswear their independence:
Spoke of one she nicknamed Croesus, who on her his wealth would squander;
But she added, “Dear old goosie, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’”

So I worked away, quite happy, through the broiling summer weather,
Longing for the coming autumn, when we’d walk the world together.
Though her letters were less frequent, still I very often conned her
Last one, where the postscript told me, “Absence makes the heart
grow fonder.”
Fewer still were now her letters, and she wrote, “I’m very busy.”
I expostulated—mildly—with my wayward, witching Lizzie;
Once more came the same old answer,—any other seemed beyond her,—
“Don’t you know, you stupid Willie, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder?’”
One more letter yet she sent me while she at the seaside tarried,
Laughing at our “mild flirtation,” telling me that she was—married;
And ‘twas thus her note concluded,—as I read my face turned yellow:
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder—fonder of the other fellow!”
— John A. Fraser Jr. (Century Magazine, 1884)

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