Poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

The Cold Change

IN the cold change which time hath wrought on love
    (The snowy winter of his summer prime), 
Should a chance sigh or sudden tear-drop move
    Thy heart to memory of the olden time; 
Turn not to gaze on me with pitying eyes,
    Nor mock me with a withered hope renewed; 
But from the bower we both have loved, arise
    And leave me to my barren solitude!

What boots it that a momentary flame
    Shoots from the ashes of a dying fire? 
We gaze upon the hearth from whence it came,
    And know the exhausted embers must expire: 
Therefore no pity, or my heart will break;
Be cold, be careless -- for thy past love's sake! 

1. The Sense of Beauty
2. The Chapel Royal St. James’s, on the 10th February, 1840
3. The Boatswain’s Song
4. Weep Not for Him That Dieth
5. May-Day, 1837

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