For thy beauty was mine, and my spirit knows it,
Never, ah, never my heart forgets,
One thing fixed, in the torrent of changing,
Faults and follies and fierce regrets.
Thine eyes and thy hair, that were lovely symbols
Of that white soul that their grace enshrined,
They are part of me and my life for ever,
In every fibre and cell entwined.
Men might argue that having known thee
I had grown faithful and pure as thee,