So tired, so tired, my heart and I! 
        Though now none takes me on his arm
        To fold me close and kiss me warm
     Till each quick breath end in a sigh
        Of happy languor.  Now, alone,
        We lean upon this graveyard stone,
     Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

     Tired out we are, my heart and I.
        Suppose the world brought diadems
        To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
     Of powers and pleasures?  Let it try. 
        We scarcely care to look at even
        A pretty child, or God’s blue heaven,
     We feel so tired, my heart and I.

     Yet who complains?  My heart and I? 
        In this abundant earth, no doubt,
        Is little room for things worn out: 
     Disdain them, break them, throw them by! 
        And if, before the days grew rough,
        We once were loved, used,—­well enough
     I think we’ve fared, my heart and I.

FROM ‘CATARINA TO CAMOENS’

[Dying in his absence abroad, and referring to the poem in which he
recorded the sweetness of her eyes.]

On the door you will not enter
I have gazed too long:  adieu! 
Hope withdraws her “peradventure”;
Death is near me,—­and not you!
Come, O lover,
Close and cover
These poor eyes you called, I ween,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

When I heard you sing that burden
In my vernal days and bowers,
Other praises disregarding,
I but hearkened that of yours,
Only saying
In heart-playing,
“Blessed eyes mine eyes have been,
If the sweetest HIS have seen!”

But all changes.  At this vesper
Cold the sun shines down the door. 
If you stood there, would you whisper,
“Love, I love you,” as before,—­
Death pervading
Now and shading
Eyes you sang of, that yestreen,
As the sweetest ever seen?

Yes, I think, were you beside them,
Near the bed I die upon,
Though their beauty you denied them,
As you stood there looking down,
You would truly
Call them duly,
For the love’s sake found therein,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

And if you looked down upon them,
And if they looked up to you,
All the light which has foregone them
Would be gathered back anew;
They would truly
Be as duly
Love-transformed to beauty’s sheen,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

But, ah me! you only see me,
In your thoughts of loving man,
Smiling soft, perhaps, and dreamy,
Through the wavings of my fan;
And unweeting
Go repeating
In your revery serene,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

O my poet, O my prophet! 
When you praised their sweetness so,
Did you think, in singing of it,
That it might be near to go? 
Had you fancies
From their glances,
That the grave would quickly screen
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen”?