Ah, I hope! yet, once away,
What may chain us, who can say?
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint that lilac kerchief, bound
Her soft face, her hair around;
Tied under the archest chin
Mockery ever ambushed in.
Let the fluttering fringes streak
All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint that figure's pliant grace
As she toward me leaned her face,
Half refused and half resigned,
Murmuring, "Art thou still unkind?"
Many a broken promise then
Was new made—to break again.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,
Eager tell-tales of her mind;
Paint, with their impetuous stress
Of inquiring tenderness,
Those frank eyes, where deep doth be
An angelic gravity.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets. Memory!
What! my friends, these feeble lines
Show, you say, my love declines?
