I sang to love when she was young:
“You are so very fair,
for you are like a faery queen
with moonbeams in her hair.”
I sang to love before she set,
like empire’s sinking sun:
“You’ll always be the maid I miss
now growing up’s begun.
I sang to love with sorrow’s song
when from my side she strayed.
A low lament, on broken strings,
by bitterness betrayed!
I sang to love in twilit grove
when she had turned to dust:
“You’ve made a melancholic man
of me, who’s lost all trust.”
I sang to love the sweetest song
when on my aging brow
she placed her tender, loving lips:
Returned! I knew not how.