Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta,
Quale sopor fessis in gramme, quale per æstum
Dulcis aquæ saliente sitim restinguere rivo.
But with the advent of babies and after long separations poetry declined, and the sympathetic wife became more and more motherly. The father retired sadly into the cloudland of books. He will not emerge again. Husband and wife will stand upon the clear hill-tops together no more.
Neither quite knows what has happened; they both feel changed with an undefined sorrow, with a regret that pride will not enunciate. She is now again in India with her husband. There are duties, courtesies, nay, kindnesses which both will perform, but the ghost of love and sympathy will only rise in their hearts to gibber in mockery words and phrases that have lost their meaning, that have lost their enchantment.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
