TO ------.
I.
I
We met but in one giddy dance,
Good-night joined hands with greeting;
And twenty thousand things may chance
Before our second meeting:
For oh! I have been often told
That all the world grows older,
And hearts and hopes, to-day so cold,
To-morrow must be colder.
II
If I have never touched the string
Beneath your chamber, dear one,
And never said one civil thing
When you were by to hear one,—
If I have made no rhymes about
Those looks which conquer Stoics,
And heard those angel tones, without
One fit of fair heroics,—
III
Yet do not, though the world's cold school
Some bitter truths has taught me,
O do not deem me quite the fool
Which wiser friends have thought me!
There is one charm I still could feel,
If no one laughed at feeling;
One dream my lute could still reveal,—
If it were worth revealing.
IV
But Folly little cares what name
Of friend or foe she handles,
When merriment directs the game,
And midnight dims the candles;
I know that Folly's breath is weak
And would not stir a feather;
But yet I would not have her speak
Your name and mine together.
V
Oh no! this life is dark and bright,
Half rapture and half sorrow;
My heart is very full to-night,
My cup shall be to-morrow:
But they shall never know from me,
On any one condition,
Whose health made bright my Burgundy,
Whose beauty was my vision!
