THE IMPROVISATRICE.
75
When love's bark, with its anchor gone,
Clings to a straw, and still trusts on.
Oh, more than all!—methinks that Love
Should pray that it might ever be
Beside the burning shrine which had
Its young heart's fond idolatry.
Oh, absence is the night of love!
Lovers are very children then;
Fancying ten thousand feverish shapes,
Until their light returns again.
A look, a word, is then recalled,
And thought upon until it wears,
What is, perhaps, a very shade,
The tone and aspect of our fears.
And this was what was withering now
The radiance of Cydippe's brow.
