The flower you gathered, blossomed long ago
Warmed by past sunshine, jeweled with the rain
Of bygone years; the river's liquid strain
Which now you hear, was once the purling flow
Of a lost stream; the very winds that blow
Have come and gone, will come and go again;
And where the primal grass has decked the plain
Year after year the later grasses grow.

And thus with every line that lovers trace;
However dear, or passionate the word,
The self-same thought, in a dead bosom stirred
Has brought the roses to some woman's face;
And all the worship that my rhyming brings
Is but an echo of forgotten things.