Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/94

88 And this is true of all the hearts that beat;
 * Though days be soft and summer pathways fair,

Be sure, while joyous glances round us meet,
 * The curtained crypt and vacant plinth are there.

To-day we stand before our draped recess:
 * There is none absent—all we love are here;

To-morrow's hands the opening curtains press,
 * And lo, the pallid pediment is bare!

The cold affection that plain duty breeds
 * May see its union severed, and approve;

But when our bond is touched, it throbs and bleeds—
 * We pay no meed of duty, but of love.

As creeping tendrils shudder from the stone,
 * The vines of love avoid the frigid heart;

The work men do is not their test alone,
 * The love they win is far the better chart.