I ask but one thing of you, only one, <br />That always you will be my dream of you; <br />That never shall I wake to find untrue <br />All this I have believed and rested on, <br />Forever vanished, like a vision gone <br />Out into the night. Alas, how few <br />There are who strike in us a chord we knew <br />Existed, but so seldom heard its tone <br />We tremble at the half-forgotten sound. <br />The world is full of rude awakenings <br />And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground, <br />Yet still our human longing vainly clings <br />To a belief in beauty through all wrongs. <br />O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!<br /><br />Amy Lowell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-friend-2/
