What hope is here for modern rhyme To him, who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshorten’d in the tract of time?
These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden’s locks; Or when a thousand moons shall wane
A man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief—then changed to something else, Sung by a long forgotten mind.
But what of that? My darken’d ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise.