Classic Poem

She took the best my heart could bring
And feasted for a while:
Nor knew I what a loveless thing
Lay underneath her smile.
And though, to-day, my fond embrace
She scarcely can recall,
The faintest smile that lit her face
Is but a picture gaining grace:
My memory holdeth all.

I doubt if she remembers one
Long wistful look of mine.
I sooner could forget the sun
Than how her hair did twine.
Than I no flower gave to the wind
More freely of its soul.
And is it strange, when looks were kind,
A luckless seaman ne'er divined
How shallow was the shoal?

And yet her glances did implore;
Her answers were complete.
If words could carry love they bore
Her spirit to my feet.
Yet now I know the sound I thought
Love's sweet replying tone
Was not the message which I sought
But rather mine own echo caught
Against her heart of stone.

I look back o'er the drifted years,
That lie as cold as snow,
And wonder why my soul endears
The days of long ago.
A thousand warm, red lips are here;
And Beauty's eyes are wet.
And, when the autumn leaves are sere,
I sit beside the fading year
And bid my soul forget.

“Though one so false possess such charms
I will not pine away;
But gladly give to other arms
This child of faithless clay.”
These words I spake and thought my heart
Was healed its wound, and then
One, neath my window, touched my heart
With some old aria of lost art,
And oped the wound again.