Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/281

 And the handkerchief of French lace

Which you held to your face—

Had a small tear left a stain?

Or was it the rain?

On your hand as it waved adieu

There were veins of blue;

In your voice as it said good-bye

Was a petulant cry,

'You have only wasted your life.'

(Ah, that was the knife!)

When I rushed through the garden gate

It was all too late.

Could we live it over again,

Were it worth the pain,

Could the passionate past that is fled

Call back its dead!

Well, if my heart must break,

Dear love, for your sake,

It will break in music, I know,

Poets' hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told

That the brain can hold

In a tiny ivory cell

God's heaven and hell. 267