Source identified1
“You did not come, And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.”
Absence becomes more painful as time continues, with the missed meeting represented not as a single moment but as a prolonged experience of disappointed expectation.
Source note: “A Broken Appointment,” Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), Project Gutenberg #3168. The poem's speaker addresses an absent person; the line is retained as dramatic lyric context.