TO ———.
183
How eagerly we grasped the cup of Love's own ruby wine, Nor dreamed that aught of bitterness could lie in ambush there!'T is years since we have met, love; long, dreary, hopeless years Have cast their gloomy, cheerless pall above the bliss we knew.Some hours I have passed in joy, but more in fruitless tears, Still kneeling at the shattered shrine where once I knelt with you.
I know 'tis all in vain now, to mourn the days gone by; To linger even in a dream about the olden joy;For memory, with a cruel hand and cold, unerring eye, Still seeks and gathers up the links 't were mercy to destroy.Go where I may, your face, love, still haunts me like a dream: It rises spirit-like when I am bowed in silent prayer;
