A Song

Once -- and only once -- you gave One rich gift, which Memory Shuts within itself, to save Sweet and fresh, while life may be: Shuts it like a rose-leaf treasured In the pages of a book, Which we open, when heart-leisured, Now and then -- softly to look. If I told you of that gift How and when, the tend'ring of it, Would you, out of rose-leaf thrift, Claim from me the rend'ring of it? That might make it two for one ('Twas of such unwonted kind!) Half a mind I have to tell you Not to tell you half a mind.