Sonnets and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ingram, John K. (1823-1907)

II.

III.

[The moon was bright that Autumn night]

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The moon was bright that Autumn night,
The skies around her blue;
Within this wood alone we stood,
And breathed a fond adieu.

The leaves that fell might seem to tell
How all things change and fade;
But time and tide our hearts defied—
We faced them undismay'd.

For, loving thus, oh! what to us
Was Fortune's fickle breath?
But, holding light life's utmost spite,
We never thought of death.

‘The hours,’ said I, ‘will quickly fly—
A year will soon be o'er;
Then holy bands will join our hands,
And we shall part no more.’

The moon is bright this April night,
The sky as blue as then;
The wood retrieves its fallen leaves:
We ne'er shall meet again.

‘A year,’ I said, ‘and we shall wed.’
Ere half that year is flown,
Spring flow'rets wave upon thy grave,
And I am here alone.

My hopes are cross'd, my treasure lost;
Joyless my life must be;
Yet—thus bereft—there still is left
The memory of thee.

Beneath these boughs that heard our vows—
Ah! now they hear but mine—
Again to-night my troth I plight
To be for ever thine.