Once, at night, in the manor wood
  My Love and I long silent stood,
  Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
  My Love, in aimless love and grief,
  Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
  That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

  A star that had remarked her pain
  Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
  And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
  “Thus Time,” I cried, “is but a tear
  Some one hath wept ’twixt hope and fear,
  Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”