To a Friend

I ask but one thing of you, only one, 
That always you will be my dream of you; 
That never shall I wake to find untrue 
All this I have believed and rested on, 
Forever vanished, like a vision gone 
Out into the night. Alas, how few 
There are who strike in us a chord we knew 
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone 
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound. 
The world is full of rude awakenings 
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground, 
Yet still our human longing vainly clings 
To a belief in beauty through all wrongs. 
O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs! 

-- Amy Lowell (1874-1925), from A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912)