169

In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!

To hold a letter to the light
Grown Tawny now, with time
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!

Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled check
Among its stores to find
Plucked far away, some morning
By gallant—mouldering hand!

A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our Constancy forgot
Perhaps, an Antique trinket
In vanished fashions set!

And then to lay them quiet back
And go about its care
As if the little Ebon Box
Were none of our affair!