To love too well, and for thy face to ever pine.
But oh! Arline, without thee life is naught,
An idle dream, with only longings fraught;
And once, Arline, you listened to my prayer,
Nor turned away with cold and haughty air."

She looks upon him with a face aglow:
"Why bring back memories of the long ago?
The past is dead, wake not its depths again,
Lest such remembrance bring thee only pain.
'Tis true that once a careless, heedless child,
Bewildered by the world, by fame beguiled,
I have allowed my heart to hear thy prayer."
"Yes, yes, Arline," he speaks with eager air,
"I know full well your love was mine, and I
Now claim the hand your heart cannot deny."

"Lorraine, how can you speak such words to me?
My love was never thine, my heart is free;
You know full well I was but kind, Lorraine,
When from thy love I fled to save thee pain.
When first I met the world a vision came
So bright--of glorious power and wealth and fame;
A part of that bright dream your worship seemed,
That you could claim my heart I little dreamed.
Yet soon I woke and with an earnest will
I sought thy mind with deeper thoughts to fill.
It mattered not, your heart's bright flame still burned;--
What were your flowers, your jeweled love to me?--
I loved thee not; each one I would have spurned,