Your lips are dumb, and with a feeble hand

You turn the pages of the year’s great book,

While my wet cheeks are with an odor fanned,

Like that the summer breeze from violets shook.

I gaze into the volume. Undiscerned

Some scenes advance, like phantoms hurry by,

And thoughts look from the leaves now swifter turned

As meaningless as would a stranger’s eye.

I meet familiar names in Death’s long list,

I pass new graves where tears have thawed the snows,