To One Who Might Have Been My Friend

Do you remember how that glowing morn
We stood hands clasped beside an amber pool
Of lilies pale as your fair skin, and cool
On my brown cheek was the misty breath of dawn?
You said, “We two are friends, for we were born
To dwell at beauty’s shrine. There is no rule
That being brown and fair, we play the fool
’Til friendship flee, a tarnished gleam forlorn.
’Twas then I saw amid the thin-leave grass
The souls of dead men yet to be;
Blue fires, old thrilling hopes leaped and died
When you in dread, a childhood friend espied—
And seeing his slow smile, you shrank from me—
Then,—my faith dead—I turned—and—let—you pass.