It seems a wandering line of music, faint,
Whose sweet pathetic measures rise and swell,
Then, strangled, fall with curious restraint.
'Tis like the pictures that the artists paint,
With shadows forward thrown into the light
From the real figures hidden out of sight.
And is not life crossed in this strange, sad way
With dreams whose shadows lengthen day by day?
But you, dear heart—sweet heart loved all these years—
Will recognize the passion of the strain: