| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917. |
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| 41. Love Triumphant |
| | | By Frederic Lawrence Knowles |
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| HELEN’S lips are drifting dust; | |
| Ilion is consumed with rust; | |
| All the galleons of Greece | |
| Drink the ocean’s dreamless peace; | |
| Lost was Solomon’s purple show | 5 |
| Restless centuries ago; | |
| Stately empires wax and wane— | |
| Babylon, Barbary, and Spain;— | |
| Only one thing, undefaced, | |
| Lasts, though all the worlds lie waste | 10 |
| And the heavens are overturned. | |
| Dear, bow long ago we learned! | |
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| There’s a sight that blinds the sun, | |
| Sound that lives when sounds are done, | |
| Music that rebukes the birds, | 15 |
| Language lovelier than words, | |
| Hue and scent that shame the rose, | |
| Wine no earthly vineyard knows, | |
| Silence stiller than the shore | |
| Swept by Charon’s stealthy oar, | 20 |
| Ocean more divinely free | |
| Than Pacific’s boundless sea,— | |
| Ye who love have learned it true. | |
| Dear, how long ago we knew! | |
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