Goblin Market, and other poems, by Christina Rossetti

Ah! changed and cold, how changed and very cold,

    With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes:

    Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise;

This was the promise of the days of old!

Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould,

    Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies:

    We hoped for better things as years would rise,

But it is over as a tale once told.

All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,

    All lost the present and the future time,

All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before:

So lost till death shut-to the opened door,

    So lost from chime to everlasting chime,

So cold and lost for ever evermore.