A trembling lover's infinite trust,
To the last drop of doating blood,
Feels not alone the ocean flood
Of desperate grief, when dreams are dust.

The scornfullest souls, with mourning eyes,
Pant o'er again their ghostly ways;--
Dread night-paths, where were gleaming days
When life was lovelier than the skies!




THE GIRLS WE MIGHT HAVE WED.


Come, brothers, let us sing a dirge,--
A dirge for myriad chances dead;
In grief your mournful accents merge:
Sing, sing the girls we might have wed!

Sweet lips were those we never pressed
In love that never lost the dew
In sunlight of a love confessed,--
Kind were the girls we never knew!

Sing low, sing low, while in the glow
Of fancy's hour those forms we trace,
Hovering around the years that go;