Fate Knows No Tears

Just as the dawn of Love was breaking

Across the weary world of grey,

Just as my life once more was waking

As roses waken late in May,

Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making,

Stepped in and carried you away.

Memories have I none in keeping

Of times I held you near my heart,

Of dreams when we were near to weeping

That dawn should bid us rise and part;

Never, alas, I saw you sleeping

With soft closed eyes and lips apart,

Breathing my name still through your dreaming.–

Ah! had you stayed, such things had been!

But Fate, unheeding human scheming,

Serenely reckless came between–

Fate with her cold eyes hard and gleaming

Unseared by all the sorrow seen.

Ah! well-beloved, I never told you,

I did not show in speech or song,

How at the end I longed to fold you

Close in my arms; so fierce and strong

The longing grew to have and hold you,

You, and you only, all life long.

They who know nothing call me fickle,

Keen to pursue and loth to keep.

Ah, could they see these tears that trickle

From eyes erstwhile too proud to weep.

Could see me, prone, beneath the sickle,

While pain and sorrow stand and reap!

Unopened scarce, yet overblown, lie

The hopes that rose-like round me grew,

The lights are low, and more than lonely

This life I lead apart from you.

Come back, come back! I want you only,

And you who loved me never knew.

You loved me, pleaded for compassion

On all the pain I would not share;

And I in weary, halting fashion

Was loth to listen, long to care;

But now, dear God! I faint with passion

For your far eyes and distant hair.

Yes, I am faint with love, and broken

With sleepless nights and empty days;

I want your soft words fiercely spoken,

Your tender looks and wayward ways–

Want that strange smile that gave me token

Of many things that no man says.

Cold was I, weary, slow to waken

Till, startled by your ardent eyes,

I felt the soul within me shaken

And long-forgotten senses rise;

But in that moment you were taken,

And thus we lost our Paradise!

Farewell, we may not now recover

That golden “Then” misspent, passed by,

We shall not meet as loved and lover

Here, or hereafter, you and I.

My time for loving you is over,

Love has no future, but to die.

And thus we part, with no believing

In any chance of future years.

We have no idle self-deceiving,

No half-consoling hopes and fears;

We know the Gods grant no retrieving

A wasted chance. Fate knows no tears.

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Poems in English 

• Robert Burns: A Poet’s Welcome To His Love-Begotten Daughter: The First Instance That Entitled Him To The Venerable Appellation Of Father by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epistle To John Rankine: Enclosing Some Poems by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Reply To An Announcement By J. Rankine: On His Writing To The Poet, That A Girl In That Part Of The Country Was With A Child To Him. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Ballad On The American War: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns Country: In The Character Of A Ruined Farmer: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On My Ever Honoured Father: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On My Own Friend And My Father’s Friend, Wm. Muir In Tarbolton Mill: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On James Grieve, Laird Of Boghead, Tarbolton : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epitaph On Wm. Hood, Senr., In Tarbolton: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Remorse: Fragment by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Wha Is That At My Bower-Door: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Green Grow The Rashes: A Fragment by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: My Nanie, O: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Song Composed In August: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Rigs O’ Barley: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: I Dream’d I Lay: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Poor Mailie’s Elegy: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Death And Dying Words Of Poor Mailie, The Author’s Only Pet Yowe., The. An Unco Mournfu’ Tale: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: John Barleycorn: A Ballad : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: My Father Was A Farmer: by Robert Burns

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