POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
JAMAIS
Early love is swift and golden,
Fond and foolish, too, perchance,
But ’tis haloed by the olden,
Golden moonlight of romance.
Once it’s ripe aurelia bound me,
Brimful with the birds of May;
By the ruins that surround me,
It shall bind no more—Jamais!
Once I felt the blue above thee,
Peri-peopled by thine art;
But ’twas death in life to love thee,
Woman of the diamond heart!
Thou hast sown the sky with ashes,
Made its constellations grey,
While the wind-gust knells and gnashes
Dirge-like to the night—“Jamais!”
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