The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley [i.e. J. B. L. Warren] |
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| VIII. | VIII |
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| XVI. |
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 | The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley |  |
18
VIII
If ever, in the waste of time unborn,
An hour shall come when thou shalt curse our meeting;
When ruin'd Love in ashes of self-scorn
Smiles a hard smile his own confusion greeting;
An hour shall come when thou shalt curse our meeting;
When ruin'd Love in ashes of self-scorn
Smiles a hard smile his own confusion greeting;
An hour when Faith is broken on the wheel,
And Hope, self-strangled in her own despair,
Sees Memory grinding down with iron heel
The small flower-faces that would spring elsewhere;
And Hope, self-strangled in her own despair,
Sees Memory grinding down with iron heel
The small flower-faces that would spring elsewhere;
If then, perchance, with dull and altered eyes,
Thou comest to me and sayest “lo thy deed,
The temple thou hast shaken—how it lies
Wasted and bare and broken round with weed”—
Thou comest to me and sayest “lo thy deed,
The temple thou hast shaken—how it lies
Wasted and bare and broken round with weed”—
Ah, Love—one fault was ours, the fault of change;
The rest is pure; this poison left us strange.
The rest is pure; this poison left us strange.
| The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley | |