Recalling those beloved days
(Days intimate with ways
Of friends so near to us
And life so dear to us),
We yearn unspeakably for her return.

And come she must. . .Yet while we trust
We soon may see the passing of this agony
Which makes intrusive years still seem
A fearsome dream,
We know that when she comes
She really comes not back again.

She'll come in other guise
And under fairer skies--
And yet to bitter pain!
That day she went away
Our homes with laughing youth were filled.
Where then was happiness
Is now distress,
The laughter stilled;
For when she left
Youth followed her-
We stay bereft.


So all our golden joy
For what she brings
Must carry gray alloy:
The sorrow that she can not lay,