Then Elbert, when we met, talk’d much of this:
How, all its chairs made vacant one by one,
Th’ applause rose thinner at his bachelor-club;
How, brief as birds’, are human mating-times;
How men, mere songs forgot, withdraw to nests—
To homes—their worlds, where all the sky is fill’d
With sunny smiles they love, and shadowy locks.
How sweet were life whose light and shade were these!
“We, Norman,” said he, “were contented once;
To love each other only; but men part;