In moments to delight devoted,
'My life!' with tenderest tone you cry;
Dear words! on which my heart had doted,
If youth could neither fade nor die.

To death even hours like these must roll,
Ah! then repeat those accents never;
Or change 'my life!' into 'my soul!'
Which, like my love, exists for ever.
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AN OTHER VERSION

You call me still your life.--Oh! change the word--
Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh:
Say rather I'm your soul; more just that name,
For, like the soul, my love can never die.