Enough to last our lives we dreamed,
And lives to come, we used to say--
Yet are we at the last to-day.

The last, I say, yet scarce believe
What all my heart is black with knowing;
Doomed, I yet watch for some reprieve,
But know too well that love is going,
As sure as yonder stream is flowing.

Look round us how the hot sun burns
In plots of glory here and there,
Pouring its gold among the ferns:
So burned my lips upon your hair,
So rained our kisses, love, last year.

We saw not where a shadow loomed,
That, from its first auroral hour,
Our happy paradise fore-doomed;
A Fate within whose icy power
Love blooms as helpless as a flower.

Its shadow by the dial stands,
The golden moments shudder past,
Soon shall he smite apart our hands,
In vain we hold each other fast,
And the last kiss must come at last.

The last! then be it charged with fire,
With sacred passion wild and white,