Classic Poem

Things he had loved because he knew them lost,
Things he had loved and never yet had found—
The unintelligible beauty tossed
Back from a foolish dream—the smothered sound
Of laughter from a window swiftly barred
In some monk's chronicle—the ruined grace
Of carven marbles that old rains had marred—
Things he had lost and loved were in that place.

And she was like the voice of those lost things
Haunting the body that his arms held near,
And singing there of other loves as sings
The bird at evening of another year.
But now she slept and was herself and seemed
More than his love and less than he had dreamed.