Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time
Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past:
Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,
And noble dreams that had to end at last:—
Ah! these indeed; and from youth's sacristy
Full many a holy relic hath he torn,
Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me,
Holding them up to Him in life's young morn.

All these are mine no more—Time hath them all,
Time and his adamantine gaoler Death:
Despoilure vast—yet seemeth it but small,
When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath
Filling with light and incense the last shrine,
Innermost, inaccessible,—yea, thine.