What hope is hero for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye
One sings, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshortened in the tract of time?

These mortal lullabies of pain
May bind a book, may line a box,
May serve to curle a mainden´s locks;
Or when a thousand moons shall wane

A man upon a stall may find,
And, passing, may turn the page that tells
A grief, than changed to something else,
Sung by a long-forgotten mind.

But what of that? My darkened ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love mores sweet than praise