Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,

      Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine,

      Will carry you back to what I used to say,

      And bring some memory of your love’s decline.

      Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!”

      And yield a sigh to me – as ample due,

      Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid

      To one who could resign her all to you —

      And thus reflecting, you will never see

      That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,

      Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,

      But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;

      And you amid its fitful masquerade

      A Thought – as I in yours but seem to be.

      I will be faithful to thee; aye, I will!

      And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye

      That he did not discern and domicile

      One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!

      I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime

      Of manhood who deal gently with me here;

      Amid the happy people of my time

      Who work their love’s fulfilment, I appear

      Numb as a vane that cankers on its point,

      True to the wind that kissed ere canker came;

      Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint

      The mind from memory, and make Life all aim,

      My old dexterities of hue quite gone,

      And nothing left for Love to look upon.

      This love puts all humanity from me;

      I can but maledict her, pray her dead,

      For giving love and getting love of thee —

      Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!

      How much I love I know not, life not known,

      Save as some unit I would add love by;

      But this I know, my being is but thine own —

      Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.

      And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her

      Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;

      Canst thou then hate me as an envier

      Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?

      Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier

      The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise.

      Beneath a knap where flown

      Nestlings play,

      Within walls of weathered stone,

      Far away

      From the files of formal houses,

      By the bough the firstling browses,

      Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet,

      No man barters, no man sells

      Where she dwells.

      Upon that fabric fair

      “Here is she!”

      Seems written everywhere

      Unto me.

      But to friends and nodding neighbours,

      Fellow-wights in lot and labours,

      Who descry the times as I,

      No such lucid legend tells

      Where she dwells.

      Should I lapse to what I was

      Ere we met;

      (Such can not be, but because

      Some forget

      Let me feign it) – none would notice

      That where she I know by rote is

      Spread a strange and withering change,

      Like a drying of the wells

      Where she dwells.

      To feel I might have kissed —

      Loved as true —

      Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed

      My life through.

      Had I never wandered near her,

      Is a smart severe – severer

      In the thought that she is nought,

      Even as I, beyond the dells

      Where she dwells.

      And Devotion droops her glance

      To recall

      What bond-servants of Chance

      We are all.

      I but found her in that, going

      On my errant path unknowing,

      I did not out-skirt the spot

      That no spot on earth excels,

      – Where she dwells!

      When Lawyers strive to heal a breach,

      And Parsons practise what they preach;

      Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,

      And march his men on London town!

      Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,

      Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

      When Justices hold equal scales,

      And Rogues are only found in jails;

      Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,

      And march his men on London town!

      Rollicum-rorum, &c.

      When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,

      And fill therewith the Poor Man’s purse;

      Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,

      And march his men on London town!

      Rollicum-rorum, &c.

      When Husbands with their Wives agree,

      And Maids won’t wed from modesty;

      Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down,

      And march his men on London town!

      Rollicum-rorum,