HE LAMENTS THAT HIS LOVE IS DEAD <br />My love is dead, dead and in spite of me,-- <br />Dead while I lived,--while yet my blood was rife <br />With hope and pleasure and the pride of life. <br />For my love ended unexpectedly <br />During the Winter, stricken like a tree <br />By a night's cold, and frozen to the blood, <br />Whose leaves fell off and never were renewed <br />By any promise of the years to be. <br />And, when the Spring came, and the birds, to mate <br />Among its branches, lo! they found it bare, <br />Though all around was Summer in the wood. <br />Yet they took heart awhile, incredulous <br />That such a tree should be for ever dead. <br />``'Tis early yet,'' they cried. ``The Spring is late. <br />It shall still be as in the days that were.'' <br />But Summer came and went while the tree stood <br />Bare in the sun like a deserted house. <br />--Then the birds suddenly despaired and fled.<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-love-sonnets-of-proteus-part-i-to-manon-xviii/
