As one might love a dream; a phantom fair

Of something exquisitely strange and rare,

Which all were glad to look on, men and maids,

Yet no one claimed—as oft, in dewy glades,

The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness,

Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;—

The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.

’Tis vain to say—her worst of grief is only

The common lot, which all the world have known

To her ‘tis more, because her heart is lonely,