Those Graces were that seemed grim
Fates;

With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;
The long-sought Secret's golden gates
On musical hinges swung before me.

I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp Thrilling with godhood; like a lover

I sprang the proffered life to clasp; The beaker fell; the luck was over.

The Earth has drunk the vintage up; What boots it patch the goblet's splinters? Can Summer fill the icy cup, Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's?

O spendthrift haste! await the Gods; The nectar crowns the lips of Patience; Haste scatters on unthankful sods The immortal gift in vain libations.

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,

And it hardly seemed a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter away; Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari But loosed the hampering strings, And when they had opened her cagedoor,

My little bird used her wings.

But they left in her stead a changeling,
A little angel child,

That seems like her bud in full blossom,
And smiles as she never smiled:
When I wake in the morning, I see it
Where she always used to lie,
And I feel as weak as a violet
Alone 'neath the awful sky.

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