Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/470

VARIOUS POEMS And, robbed of her perfection,

Be faithfull to her shrine.

At this blythe season bending

Ile whisper to the clodde,

To the chill grasse where shadowes passe

And leaflesse branches nodde;

There keepe my watche, and crye—Alas

That Love may not forget,

That Joye must have swifte ending

And Life be laggard yet!

THE WORLD WELL LOST

year? Yes, doubtless I remember still,—

Though why take count of every wind that blows!

'T was plain, men said, that Fortune used me ill

That year,—the self-same year I met with Rose.

Crops failed; wealth took a flight; house, treasure, land,

Slipped from my hold—thus plenty comes and goes.

One friend I had, but he too loosed his hand

(Or was it I?) the year I met with Rose.

There was a war, I think; some rumor, too,

Of famine, pestilence, fire, deluge, snows;

Things went awry. My rivals, straight in view,

Throve, spite of all; but I,—I met with Rose.

That year my white-faced Alma pined and died:

Some trouble vexed her quiet heart,—who knows?

Not I, who scarcely missed her from my side,

Or aught else gone, the year I met with Rose.

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