Page:Poems and ballads (IA balladspoems00swinrich).pdf/69

 Still ruled in the viewless night, As love might rule over death.

The time of lovers is brief; From the fair first joy to the grief That tells when love is grown old, From the warm wild kiss to the cold, From the red to the white-rose leaf, They have but a season to seem As roseleaves lost on a stream That part not and pass not apart As a spirit from dream to dream, As a sorrow from heart to heart.

From the bloom and the gloom that encloses The death-bed of Love where he dozes Till a relic be left not of sand To the hour-glass that breaks in his hand;