As some great monarch in triumphal train
Holds in his thrall an hundred captive kings,
Guard thou the loves of all my vanished springs
To wait as handmaids on thy sweet disdain.
And thou shalt wear their tresses like bright rings,
For their defeat perpetuates thy reign!
With thy imperious girlhood vie in vain
The pallid hosts of all old poignant things.
Place on thy brow the mystic diadem
With women’s faces cunningly embossed,
Whereon each memory glitters like a gem;
But mark that mine were regal loves that lost
And loved like queens, nor haggled for the cost--
And having conquered, oh be kind to them!