Classic Poem

Short and sweet, and we've come to the end of it —
— Our poor little love lying cold.
Shall no sonnet, then, ever be penned of it?
— Nor the joys and pains of it told?
How fair was its face in the morning,
— How close its caresses at noon,
How its evening grew chill without warning,
Unpleasantly soon!

I can't say just how we began it —
— In a blush, or a smile, or a sigh;
Fate took but an instant to plan it;
— It needs but a moment to die.
Yet — remember that first conversation,
— When the flowers you had dropped at your feet
I restored. The familiar quotation
Was — " Sweets to the sweet. "

Oh, their delicate perfume has haunted
— My senses a whole season through.
If there was one soft charm that you wanted
— The violets lent it to you.
I whispered you, life was but lonely:
— A cue which you graciously took;
And your eyes learned a look for me only —
A very nice look.

And sometimes your hand would touch my hand,
— With a sweetly particular touch;
You said many things in a sigh, and
— Made a look express wondrously much.
We smiled for the mere sake of smiling,
— And laughed for no reason but fun;
Irrational joys; but beguiling —
And all that is done!

We were idle, and played for a moment
— At a game that now neither will press:
I cared not to find out what " No " meant;
— Nor your lips to grow yielding with " Yes. "
Love is done with and dead; if there lingers
— A faint and indefinite ghost,
It is laid with this kiss on your fingers —
A jest at the most.

'Tis a commonplace, stale situation,
— Now the curtain comes down from above
On the end of our little flirtation —
— A travesty romance; for Love,
If he climbed in disguise to your lattice,
— Fell dead of the first kisses' pain:
But one thing is left us now; that is —
Begin it again.