THE OFFERING.
BY L. E. L.
There is a beauty vanishes away
From earth, and from earth's loveliest; we can see
The moonlight falling on the silvered lake,
The rose unfolding the deep crimson leaves
Where love-thoughts once were writ, the quiet stars
Like angels glorifying the still night.
They do not wear the light that once they wore,
Their poetry is gone—for that which made
The spirit of their beauty was in us
And from ourselves, and we are wholly changed,
And look on things with cold and altered eyes;
For the grave casts its darkness long before
We stand upon its brink!
I see them fading round me,
The beautiful, the bright,
As the rose-red lights that darken
At the falling of the night.
I had a lute, whose music
Made sweet the summer wind,
But the broken strings have vanished
And no song remains behind.
