Indifference . . .

What is indifference, do you ask of me?

O well I know the meaning of the phrase.
It is to find grey ash instead of blaze
That warmed you once; to lose, alas! the key
Which turned in friendship's wards; to sometime see
The eyes that shone for you in other days
Now coldly meet your own in passing gaze;
To know that what has been no more shall be.
It is to find that you in naught believe,
To know that youth has fled far down the past,
To feel that hope will ne'er again be born,
And love is but a poor worn cheat at last.
It is all this, yet not for this to grieve,--
To live and heed not that one lives forlorn!

(Oscar Fay Adams, 1855-1919)