To a Friend

I ask but one thing of you, only one,
 That always you will be my dream of you;
 That never shall I wake to find untrue
All this I have believed and rested on,
Forever vanished, like a vision gone
 Out into the night.  Alas, how few
 There are who strike in us a chord we knew
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
 We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
The world is full of rude awakenings
 And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,
Yet still our human longing vainly clings
 To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.
 O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!
To a Friend

by Amy Lowell, 1912
