“For I ride—­what should I do but ride? 
And passing her palace, if I list,
May glance at its window-well betide!” 120

So said, so done:  nor the lady missed
One ray that broke from the ardent brow,
Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.

Be sure that each renewed the vow,
No morrow’s sun should arise and set
And leave them then as it left them now.

But next day passed, and next day yet,
With still fresh cause to wait one day more
Ere each leaped over the parapet.

And still, as love’s brief morning wore, 130
With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,
They found love not as it seemed before.

They thought it would work infallibly,
But not in despite of heaven and earth: 
The rose would blow when the storm passed by.

Meantime they could profit in winter’s dearth
By store of fruits that supplant the rose: 
The world and its ways have a certain worth: 

And to press a point while these oppose
Were simple policy; better wait:  140
We lose no friends and we gain no foes.

Meantime, worse fates than a lover’s fate
Who daily may ride and pass and look
Where his lady watches behind the grate!

And she—­she watched the square like a book
Holding one picture and only one,
Which daily to find she undertook: 

When the picture was reached the book was done,
And she turned from the picture at night to scheme
Of tearing it out for herself next sun. 150

So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam
The glory dropped from their youth and love,
And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;

Which hovered as dreams do, still above: 
But who can take a dream for a truth? 
Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove!

One day as the lady saw her youth
Depart, and the silver thread that streaked
Her hair, and, worn by the serpent’s tooth,

The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, 160
And wondered who the woman was,
Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked,

Fronting her silent in the glass—­
“Summon here,” she suddenly said,
“Before the rest of my old self pass,

“Him, the Carver, a hand to aid,
Who fashions the clay no love will change
And fixes a beauty never to fade.

“Let Robbia’s craft so apt and strange
Arrest the remains of young and fair, 170
And rivet them while the seasons range.

“Make me a face on the window there,
Waiting as ever, mute the while,
My love to pass below in the square!

“And let me think that it may beguile
Dreary days which the dead must spend
Down in their darkness under the aisle,

“To say, ’What matters it at the end? 
’I did no more while my heart was warm
Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.’ 180