In Ebon Box, When Years Have Flown

169 In Ebon Box, when years have flown To reverently peer, Wiping away the velvet dust Summers have sprinkled there! To hold a letter to the light— Grown Tawny now, with time— To con the faded syllables That quickened us like Wine! Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled check Among its stores to find— Plucked far away, some morning— By gallant—mouldering hand! A curl, perhaps, from foreheads Our Constancy forgot— Perhaps, an Antique trinket— In vanished fashions set! And then to lay them quiet back— And go about its care— As if the little Ebon Box Were none of our affair!