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

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

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