And now I stood in the very dingle where they had so often and so wildly met; and it was all gone, quite gone away for ever.

The hours that had seemed so real, the kisses that had seemed like to last for ever, the vows, the tears, all now as if they had never been, gone on the four winds, lost in the abysses of time and space.
And to think of all the thousands and thousands of lovers who had loved no less wildly and tenderly, made sweet these lanes with their vows, made green these meadows with their feet; and they, too, all gone, their bright eyes fallen to dust, their sweet voices for ever put to silence.
To which I would add, for the benefit of the profane, that I sought in vain for those broken bottles..