Sara Teasdale

Embers

  I said, "My youth is gone
   Like a fire beaten out by the rain,
  That will never sway and sing
   Or play with the wind again."

  I said, "It is no great sorrow
   That quenched my youth in me,
  But only little sorrows
   Beating ceaselessly."

  I thought my youth was gone,
   But you returned--
  Like a flame at the call of the wind
   It leaped and burned;

  Threw off its ashen cloak,
   And gowned anew
  Gave itself like a bride
   Once more to you.