6
All tender thoughts that fill the heart
With tears, and dreams more soft than tears,
Have in imagination part,
Which sanctifies what it endears.
I only wake the softest chord
That is upon the dreaming lyre;
One low, one love-touched whispering word,
Which asks its tears, but not its fire.
I ask of every pictured scene
What human hearts have beaten there;
What sorrow on their soil has been,
What hope has lighted human care?
I have myself forgot regret,
Care, trouble, wrong, amid my strain;
If I win others to forget,
My song has not been quite in vain.
L. E. L.
