| THOSE black eyes I once so praised | |
| Now are hard and sharp and cold; | |
| Where 's the love that through them blazed? | |
| Where 's the tenderness of old? | |
| All is gone—how utterly— | 5 |
| From its stem the flower has dropped. | |
| Ah! how ugly Life can be | |
| After Love from it is lopped! | |
| |
| Do we hate each other now, | |
| While we call each other dear? | 10 |
| On that faultless mouth and brow | |
| To the world does change appear? | |
| No! your smile is just as sweet, | |
| Just as fair your outward grace; | |
| But I look in vain to greet | 15 |
| The dear ghost behind the face. | |
| |
| That is gone! I look on you | |
| As a corpse from which has fled | |
| All that once I loved and knew, | |
| All that once I thought to wed. | 20 |
| 'T is not your fault, 't is not mine; | |
| Yet I still recall a dream | |
| Of a joy almost divine— | |
| 'T was an image in a stream. | |
| |
| Nothing can be sour and sharp | 25 |
| As a love that has decayed— | |
| On the loose strings of the harp | |
| Only discord can be made. | |
| Cold this common friendship seems | |
| After love's auroral glow; | 30 |
| On the broken stem of dreams | |
| Only disappointments grow. | |
| |
| Do I hate you? No! Not hate? | |
| Hate 's a word far too intense, | |
| Too alive, to speak a state | 35 |
| Of supreme indifference. | |
| Once, behind your eyes I thought | |
| Worlds of love and life to see; | |
| Now I see behind them nought | |
| But a soulless vacancy. | 40 |
| |
| Out and out I know you now; | |
| There 's no issue of your heart | |
| Where my soul with you may go | |
| To a beauty all apart, | |
| Where the world can never come. | 45 |
| 'T is a little narrow place— | |
| Friendship there might find a home; | |
| Love would die—for want of space. | |
| |
| So we live! The world still says, | |
| "What expression in her eyes! | 50 |
| What sweet manners—graceful ways!" | |
| How it would the world surprise | |
| If I said, "This woman's soul | |
| Made for love you think, but try; | |
| Plunge therein—how clear and shoal!— | 55 |
| You might drown there—so can't I?" | |
