A Lament
Let gleeful muses sing their roundelays!
So might my muse have sung;
But in the jocund days
When she was young,
She chanced upon a grave
New-made, and since, there strays
A mournful cadence through her lightest stave.
Her mask, however gay,
Still covers cheeks tear-wet;
She cannot, in her singing, smile
Until she can forget.
Like To A Coin
Like to a coin, passing from hand to hand,
Are common memories, and day by day
The sharpness of their impress wears away.
But love's remembrances unspoiled with-stand
The touch of time, as in an antique land
Where some proud town old centuries did slay,
Intaglios buried lie, still in decay
Perfect and precious spite of grinding sand.
What fame or joy or sorrow has been ours,
What we have hoped or feared, we may forget.
The clearness of all memory time deflours,
Save that of love alone, persistent yet
Though sure oblivion all things else devours,
Its tracings firm as when they first were set.
