The Cameo by Edna St. Vincent Millay — Read

Forever over now, forever, forever gone / That day. Clear and diminished like a scene

Carven in cameo, the lighthouse, and the cove between / The sandy cliffs, and the boat drawn up on the beach;

And the long skirt of a lady innocent and young, / Her hand resting on her bosom, her head hung;

And the figure of a man in earnest speech.

Clear and diminished like a scene cut in cameo / The lighthouse, and the boat on the beach, and the two shapes

Of the woman and the man; lost like the lost day / Are the words that passed, and the pain,-discarded, cut away

From the stone, as from the memory the heat of the tears escapes.

O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard, / Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure;

From the action of the waves and from the action of sorrow forever secure, / White against a ruddy cliff you stand, chalcedony on sard.