Between us now, my dear, 'tis all UP,
I am a spectre and a phantom you,
Our love is dead and buried; if you agree,
We'll sing around its tombstone dirges due.

But let us take an air in a low key,
Lest we should strain our voices, more or less;
Some solemn minor, free from flourishes;
I'll take the bass, sing you the melody.

Mi, re, mi, do, re, la,--ah! not that song!
Hearing the song that once you used to sing
My heart would palpitate--though dead so long--
And, at the _De Profundis_, upward spring.

Do, mi, fa, sol, mi, do,--this other brings
Back to the mind a valse of long ago,
The fife's shrill laughter mocked the sounding strings
That wept their notes of crystal to the bow.

Sol, do, do, si, si, la,--ah! stay your hand!
This is the air we sang last year in chorus,
With Germans shouting for their fatherland
In Meudon woods, while summer's moon stood o'er us.

Well, well, we will not sing nor speculate,
But--since we know they never more may be--
On our lost loves, without a grudge or hate,
Drop, while we smile, a final memory.

What times we had up there; do you remember?
When on your window panes the rain would stream,
And, seated by the fire, in dark December,
I felt your eyes inspire me many a dream.

The live coal crackled, kindling with the heat,
The kettle sang, melodious and sedate,
A music for the visionary feet
Of salamanders leaping in the grate:

Languid and lazy, with an unread book,
You scarcely tried to keep your lids apart,
While to my youthful love new growth I took,
Kissing your hands and yielding you my heart.

In merely entering one night believe,
One felt a scent of love and gaiety,
Which filled our little room from morn to eve,
For fortune loved our hospitality.

And winter went: then, through the open sash,
Spring flew, to say the year's long night was done;
We heard the call, and ran with impulse rash
In the green country side to meet the sun.

It was