Should love return before I die,
If haply love could live so long,
He will not come with smile or sigh,
Nor wake in me the gift of song.

No, rather with a lordly scorn
I would receive the fatal trust,
For pleasures out of season born
Are ashes at the core, and dust.

And beauty's eyes might plead in vain,
And music's voice intone forever —
I should hear nothing in the strain
But one sad note of never, never.