As season after season blooms and fades,
But most, when earth by June's deft finger glows
With crimson, gold, and red of opening rose;
Then all the spirit of the dead days pervades
My being, and at eve, in bowery glades,
I feel dead kisses when the west wind blows;
And the dull wonder of a chill repose
Enfolds me as I watch the twilight shades.
'Tis better thus: to know no stab of pain,
Nor joy ecstatic when the sunset burns.
Circumstance, morn and night, remain the same,
Life's joys and sorrows come to but a name;
Only the madd'ning thought, that Spring returns,
And cannot bring our vanished hopes again!
[Printed in Jane Paxton Smieton's Poems & Ballads]