Changed.
I can not tell what change has come to you,
Since when, amid the pine-trees' murmurous stir,
You spoke to me of love most deep and true:
I only know you are not as you were.
It is not that you fail in tender speech;
You speak to me as kindly as of old;
But yet there is a depth I do not reach,
A doubt that makes my heart grow sick and cold.
True, there has been no anger and no strife;
I only feel, with dreary discontent,
That something bright has vanished from my life;
I know not what it is, nor where it went.
You chide my grief, and wipe my frequent tears;
But to my pain what art can minister?
Oh! I would give all life's remaining years
If you would be again as once you were!
As, dipped in fabled fountains far away,
All living things are hardened into stone,
So strange and frozen seems your love to-day,
Its sweet, spontaneous growth and life are gone:
And it is changed into a marble ghost,
Driving away all happiness and rest;
In whose chill arms I shiver faint and lost,
Bruising my heart against its rocky breast.
Nay, no regrets, no vows: it is too late,
Too late for you to speak, or me to hear:
We can not mend torn roses: we must wait
For the new blossoms of another year.