Classic Poem

These tears because he's gone? You really care?
Poor little woman with the rumpled hair,
Look at the toys you 've scattered far and near,
Play and forget him—he forgets, my dear.

He “loved you, too”? He “held you on his knee”?
But I will hold you closer, darling, see!
At eight years old such griefs soon pass away,
And by to-morrow you 'll forget to-day.

“But why don't I cry, too, since he would go”?
“Beneath your head what makes my heart beat so”?
There comes a time when all one's tears are shed,
The heart throbs out the agony instead.

You “do not understand”? Ah, well, my dear,
Some day you 'll understand it, never fear;
Poor woman-child, who yet these griefs must know,
When tears come not, only the “heart beats so.”