 | Plays and poems |  |
410
[To win and lose thee! In one hour to sa,]
To win and lose thee! In one hour to say,“Lo! love is mine!” and ere the dazzled mind
Can know the fulness of its bliss, or find
Its conscious vision lifted o'er the sway
Of raging passion—while the heart, a prey
To aching sense, is shrunken and grown blind
With too much light—to hear from every wind
Hissed in my ear, “Lo! love has flown away!”
As if some careless angel left apart
Heaven's golden doors, and I had seen within
The radiant saints, and heard the holy din
Of choral triumph, ere with jealous start
The gates shot backward, closing my sad heart,
With that bright memory, in a world of sin.
| Plays and poems | |