First Love

I look back to my early life,
When I was seventeen or so;
When Love first shed his rosy strife,
And made my brain and bosom glow.
When first a maiden, full of grace,
And fair as the wild flowers of Spring,
Came smiling from some fairy place,
And made my life a golden thing.

I worshipp'd her as all divine—
I worshipp'd her with glorious truth;
I flung upon that early shrine
The brightest hopes that fed my youth.
I wrote in many a secret rhyme,
Her charms of brow and neck of snow;
I held such poems then sublime—
I burn'd them three long years ago.

I built up many a lordly dome—
Alladin's could not cope with mine;
In Fancy's car I brought her home,
And whisper'd to her, "All is thine."
I knelt before her, free from doubt,
To kiss the hand that wore the ring;
I woke up. Jove! The fire was out,
And found that there was no such thing.

To sing of all my fits and whims,
And raptures of that golden time,
The bliss fit match for a cherubim's
Were all beyond my powers of rhyme.
Suffice it, when the bubble burst,
And I was left to weep and blame,
I thought of doing some deed accursed
As worthy of my blighted name.

I sang, in real Byronic strain,
My woes to every listening tree;
The wind sang chorus to my pain,
And howl'd in sympathy with me.
I wrote my epitaph each day,
To grace my lone, romantic rest.
I'm living still, and, strange to say,
There's no romance about my breast.

But is that maiden now forgot,
And all the warmth of long ago?
Ah, no! She lives still in my thought,
But not with such an angel glow.
For years have come, and I the while
See human things are less divine;
But still, if you would have me smile,
Don't mention that first love of mine.