How changed the house is when not Love is there!
Your deep eyes vex me like some magic book
I cannot ponder. Nay, I will not brook
The weariness of your too golden hair!
Hush! Was not that the creaking of a stair?
Was it Love’s footfall or the wind? I look
In vain for him in every hidden nook--
There is no sound of laughter anywhere....
Ah, sweet, he has forsaken us, not base,
But heedless, boyish--and the world is wide!
He sees not now your sorrow-haunted face,
Nor feels the dagger that has pierced my side,
And how all joy is vanished from the place
As from a house in which a child has died.