Amy Levy (1861–1889)

THEY trod the streets and squares where now I tread,

With weary hearts, a little while ago;

When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow

Clung to the leafless branches overhead;

Or when the smoke-veil’d sky grew stormy-red

In autumn; with a re-arisen woe

Wrestled, what time the passionate spring-winds blow;

And paced scorch’d stones in summer. They are dead.

The sorrow of their souls to them did seem

As real as mine to me, as permanent.

To-day—it is the shadow of a dream,

The half-forgotten breath of breezes spent.

So shall another soothe his woe supreme—

No more he comes, who this way came and went.