In ebon box when years have flown

In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer -
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!

To hold a letter to the light -
Grown Tawny - now - with time -
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!

Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled cheek
Among it's stores to find -
Plucked far away, some morning -
By gallant - mouldering hand!

A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our constancy forgot -
Perhaps, an antique trinket -
In vanished fashions set!

And then to lay them quiet back -
And go about it's care -
As if the little Ebon Box
Were none of our affair!