For pity, not for love
(Because you loved me so)
With undesirous lips
I kissed you long ago.

You were not over-fair;
And surely it is strange
Your memory should return,
Touched with this fairer change.

For now at whiles I meet
In eves of weariness
Your sweetly watchful eyes
That know my still distress;

And turn to feel your lips
Laid soothly on my hair-
Your half-forgotten lips,
Grown strangely dear and fair.

Who knows?-if you should come
This shifting heart to prove,
Yours might the pity be,
And mine the pitied love.