These market-dames, mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn
And tissues sere
Are they the ones we loved in years agone
And courted here?

Are these the muslined pink young things to whom
We vowed and swore
In nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom
Or Budmouth shore?

Do they remember those gay tunes we trod
Clasped on the green;
Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod
A satin sheen?

They must forget, forget! They cannot know
What once they were
Or memory would transfigure them, and show
Them always fair