THE great effulgence of the early days
Of one first summer, whose bright joys, it seems,
Have been to all my songs their golden themes;
The rose leaves gathered from the faded ways
I wandered in when they were all a-blaze
With living flowers and flame of the sunbeams;
And, more than all, that ending of my dreams
Divinely, in a dream-like thing,—the face
Of one belovèd lady once possest
In one long kiss that made my whole life burn:
What of all these remains to me?—At best,
A heap of fragrant ashes now, that turn
My heavy heart into a funeral urn