Page:Mercure de France tome 004 1892 page 212.jpg
Can you forgive me, that I wear,
Dearest, a curl of sunny hair
Not yours, yet for the sake of love
And plighted troth it minds me of?
'Tis in this quaint old signet ring,
A curious, chased engraven thing
I bought because it charm'd my eye
And told of the last century.
Pure gold it was, but dull and blotched,
And brightening it one day I touch'd
A spring that ope'd a little lid,
And there, for generations hid
In its small shrine of pallid gold
— They made such toys in days of old —
A shred of golden hair lay curled;
Worth all the gold of all the world
To some one once, who now — Heigh ho,
That was a hundred years ago!
But dearest, if he loved as I,
He loved unto eternity.
T.-W Rolleston.
« ONLI DEATHE »
(Inscribed in an Old Ring.)
"Only death us twain shall sever :"
"Nay, that he shall not do", she saith:
"The love I give you is for Ever:
Dark Death for all his dire endeavour
Decrees no parting — only death."
Ernest Radford.
