That feeding upon sunken lip and cheek

Pushes its victims from mortality.

Vainly the light rain of the summer time

Waters the dead limbs of the blasted oak.

Love is the worker of all miracles;

And if within some cold and sunless cave

Thou hadst lain lost and dying, prompted not

My feet had struck that pathway, and I could,

With the neglected sunshine of my hair,

Have clasped thee from the hungry jaws of Death,