Chapter LXXXVI

My hope had been, that I might find in thee
The soul’s ideal, as my love’s recompense,
That Heaven her fairest flowers might dispense,
In prodigal profusion unto me.
But with Reality’s cold eyes I see
How different doth fate, in truth, compense
The disappointment of love’s blighted sense;
And turn to rhymes the hope that cannot be.
Oh, if thou shouldst outlive my broken heart,
And in compassion see thy lover dead,
And once behold on earth his crumbling bones,
Thou wouldst find in these living lines a part
Of what thou hast flung from thee, and must read
Love’s epitaph upon the moss-grown stones.