Classic Poem

Her place is dark in my brain tonight, her face faded & dim,
a picture veil'd in a sanctuary unhaunted of serap him
where never mounts the incense nor memorial vesper hymn.
She that sunn'd herself in my love, that freely gave of her best,
whose ghost crept back & found some warmth in the secret shrine of my breast,
is but a piteous shadow now, despoil'd for ever of rest.

The years have gone by & left me here in a bareblown corner of days,
the treacherous mists have crept at length o'er the old beloved ways,
and alas! I cannot weep for the soul that was mine in her vanisht Mays.

Yet ah! that the years should work their will, that the wind of Time should blow
out into the wide & soundless night & Eternity's cruel flow
old lovingkindness & tenderness & kisses of long ago,

and ah! that the poor pale spirit that liv'd & lov'd & was tender of yore
should sleep for ever the second death, foul-murder'd on Lethe shore
that she & I should be lost to each other, forgotten for evermore.