Could from earth’s ways that figure slight
Be lost, and I not feel ’twas so?
Of that fresh voice the gay delight
Fail from earth’s air, and I not know?
Or shall I find thee still, but changed,
But not the Marguerite of thy prime?
With all thy being re-arranged,—
Passed through the crucible of time;
With spirit vanished, beauty waned,
And hardly yet a glance, a tone,
A gesture—any thing—retained
Of all that was my Marguerite’s own?
I will not know! For wherefore try,
To things by mortal course that live,
A shadowy durability,
For which they were not meant, to give?
Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass
Upon the boundless ocean-plain,
So on the sea of life, alas!
Man meets man,—meets, and quits again.
I knew it when my life was young;
I feel it still now youth is o’er.
—The mists are on the mountain hung,
And Marguerite I shall see no more.
THE STRAYED REVELLER.
THE PORTICO OF CIRCE’S PALACE. EVENING.
A Youth. Circe.