Who doats on a girl that others know no mate for the future man;
It was well, perhaps, that at last my pride and honor outgrew her art,
That there came an hour, when from broken chains I fled—with a broken heart.
’Twas well: but the fire would still flash up in sharp, heat-lightning gleams,
And ever at night the false, fair face shone into passionate dreams;
The false, fair form, through many a year, was somewhere close at my side,
And crept, as by right, to my very arms and the place of my patient bride.
Bride and vision have passed away, and I am again alone;
Changed by years; not wiser, I think, but only different grown:
Not so much nearer wisdom is a man than a boy, forsooth,