Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.
IndifferenceOscar Fay Adams (1855–1919)
W
O well I know the meaning of the phrase.
It is to find gray ash instead of blaze
That warmed you once; to lose, alas! the key
Which turned in friendship’s wards; to sometime see
The eyes that shone for you in other days
Now coldly meet your own in passing gaze;
To know that what has been no more shall be.
To know that youth has fled far down the past,
To feel that hope will ne’er again be born,
And love is but a poor worn cheat at last.
It is all this, yet not for this to grieve,—
To live, and heed not that one lives forlorn!