Page:Hephaestus, Persephone at Enna, and Sappho in Leucadia.djvu/44


 * But these soft lips
 * Were made not for the touch of mold.


 * Time was
 * I thought Death stern, and scattered at his door
 * My dearest roses, that his feet might come
 * And softly go.


 * This body white was made
 * Not for the grave,—this flashing wonder of
 * The hand for hungry worms!


 * Oh, quiet as
 * Soft rain on water shall it seem, and sad
 * Only as life’s most dulcet music is,
 * And dark as but a bride’s first dreaded night
 * Is dark; mild, mild as mirrored stars!
 * But you,—
 * You will forget me, Phaon; there, the sting,
 * The sorrow of the grave is not its green
 * And the salt tear upon its violet;
 * But the long years that bring the gray neglect,
 * When the glad grasses smooth the little mound,—
 * When leaf by leaf the tree of sorrow wanes
 * And on the urn unseen the tarnish comes,
 * And tears are not so bitter as they were.
 * Time sings so low to our bereavèd ears,—
 * So softly breathes, that, bud by falling bud,