Classic Poem

Once did I dream of wildest passion's glow,
Of love-locks, bloom of flowers, and songs of birds,
Of sweetest lips that uttered bitter words,
Of woeful verse married to airs of woe.

Faded and vanished are those visioned times!
Vanished the dreamt-of Shade I loved the best;
Nothing remains but that which, love-possessed,
I shaped and moulded into gentle rhymes.

Thou, orphaned song, wast left—thou, too, shalt fade!
Go, seek that Shade which fled with dreams too fleeting;
And, if thou find it, bear it all my greeting,
An airy breath I send to airy Shade.