III. FROM “LOST ALICE.”

Yes, dear, our Love is slain;

In the cold grave for evermore it lies,

Never to wake again,

Or light our sorrow with its starry eyes;

And so — regret is vain.

One hour of pain and dread,

We killed our Love, we took its life away

With the false words we said;

And so we watch it, since that cruel day,

Silent, and cold, and dead.

We should have seen it shine

Long years beside us. Time and Death might try

To touch that life divine,

Whose strength could every other stroke defy

Save only thine and mine.

No longing can restore

Our dead again. Vain are the tears we weep,

And vainly we deplore

Our buried Love: its grave lies dark and deep

Between us evermore.