Classic Poem

DEAR E DITH , I am pondering now,
With the sweet south wind on my brow,
And thoughtful eyes, which only see
The past, in sky, and grass, and tree.

Into the past I go to seek
The lustre of thy maiden cheek,
And all thy graces debonair —
I go to seek, and find them there.

Canst thou revisit, as I do,
The time wherein I learned to woo?
The time when, young in thought and years,
We learned love's lore of smiles and tears?

Our early love founDearly cure,
But, cousin mine, of this be sure —
In that fair time we loved as well
As stateliest lord and damosell.

If thou didst not, pray tell me why
Thy soul stood beckoning in thine eye —
Playing the sweet mime with my own,
And evermore with mine alone?

If I loved not, why should it be
That, quickened by a thought of thee,
My spirit goes forth fiery fast
To meet thee in the radiant past?

Ah! break not in thine ignorance
The golden rule of that romance,
But let it hold thy riper age,
As mine, in happy vassalage.

As mine! — by Eros, to be free
From bondage of that memory,
Were but to wear a colder chain —
Were but to give my bliss for pain.