If dreaming of thee be a waste of time,
My endless sin I can but frankly own;
For ere the foreward primroses had blown,
Or woodbine had begun to bud and climb,
While the scarred land was pinched with frosty rime,
And laggard spring but here and there had shown
Her quickening touch, within my heart had grown
The ripened fruitage of this gentle crime.
Through summer and through autumn rolled the year,
The rose burst out and fell before my eye;
Another spring, another summer die,
And yet my thralldom only doth appear
Deeper and deeper on my heart to lie;
And all my life will pass in dreams, I fear.