Sonnet 18

If but a memory could serve you well,
I'd shrink, with timid eyes, into the past
That once before you graced, but now a shell
Of present, loveless, hopeless times are cast
With lonely, tepid dreams into my head.
If but a memory could pay me due
Release from tortured, dying, longing beds
Of snowy flowers I had grown for you,
Then would I note the flowers in the vase
As fresh with designation for the snow?
My flowers, while you sleep, cannot replace
A past of love and future not to grow,
But shrink with time, and distance, from my heart -
And with this snowy flower shall we part.