Only once its door was opened, and it shut for evermore;
And though sounds of many voices gather round it like a sea,
It is silent, ever silent, as the shore.
"In that chamber, long ago, my love's casket was concealed,
And the jewel that it sheltered I knew only one could win:
And my soul foreboded sorrow, should that jewel be revealed,
And I almost hoped that none might enter in.
"Yet day and night I lingered by that fatal chamber door,
Till—she came at last my darling one, of all the earth my own;
And she entered—then she vanished with my jewel which she wore;