Poems of Passion — 26 - New and old

NEW AND OLD.

I and new love, in all its living bloom, Sat vis-a-vis, while tender twilight hours Went softly by us, treading as on flowers.

Then suddenly I saw within the room The old love, long since lying in its tomb.

It dropped the cerecloth from its fleshless face And smiled on me, with a remembered grace That, like the noontide, lit the gloaming's gloom.

Upon its shroud there hung the grave's green mould, About it hung the odor of the dead;

Yet from its cavernous eyes such light was shed That all my life seemed gilded, as with gold;

Unto the trembling new love '"Go," I said "I do not need thee, for I have the old."