Lady, be the chatelaine
Of my vagrant dreams and vain:
Knowing naught is true and fair
Save the love that is despair,
In thy heart's withholden visne
Share with me the might-have-been,
Weave with me the sorcery
Of the nevermore-to-be.

Lady, let us pluck delight
Only from a forfeit night,
From the bedded myrtles strewn
'Neath a never-risen moon.
From the coil of years made free
In the climes of reverie,
Flee we to the phantom Troy
Of a time-forbidden joy.

Lady, be the chatelaine
Of my vagrant dreams and vain:
Be thou true and be thou kind
To the love we shall not find—
Sweet as aught the sirens sang:
Tome shall bring no dearer pang
Nor a mightier sorcery
Than the nevermore-to-be.