Time is balm and medicine, they say,

for blood let by each misadventured heart.

And memories remembered fade away

that few can in nostalgia find their art.

So, too, cold reason could I let destroy

what sweet imaginings have crept within

my mind to make of you that queen of Troy.

Could silence music ere it can begin.

But sad strains stir the soul from where it sits,

stagnating slave to sense, to care and toil.

Though wisdom cautions me against these fits,

from any else, the wisest must recoil.

If under such strong storms I tread alone,

Then thunder thoughts to dust, turn heart to stone.