Thou knowest no grief, though thy love may weep.
A phantom smile, with a faint, wan beam,
Is fixed on thy features sealed in sleep:
Oh tell me the secret bliss of thy dream.

Does it lead to fair meadows with flowering trees,
Where thy sister-angels hail thee their own?
Was not my love to thee dearer than these?
Thine was my world and my heaven in one.

I dare not call thee aloud, nor cry,
Thou art so solemn, so rapt in rest,
But I will whisper: Dolores, 'tis I:
My heart is breaking within my breast.

Never ere now did I speak thy name,
Itself a caress, but the lovelight leapt
Into thine eyes with a kindling flame,
And a ripple of rose o'er thy soft cheek crept.

But now wilt thou stir not for passion or prayer,
And makest no sign of the lips or the eyes,
With a nun's strait band o'er thy bright black hair--
Blind to mine anguish and deaf to my cries.

I stand no more in the waxen-lit room:
I see thee again as I saw thee that day,
In a world of sunshine and springtide bloom,
'Midst the green and white of the budding May.