In After Years

LOVE is dying. Why then, let it die. Trample it down, that it die more fast. What is a rose that has lost its bloom? What is a fruit with its freshness past? And where is the worth of the twilight gloom? Let the night come when the day has gone by: Let the dying die. Leave your useless smiles and your tears, Weepings and wooings are, oh, so vain! Sunlights and rains bid the blossoms blow, But waken no waning blossom again. Nay, but say 'It was always so; Love was not love in the other years, There is nought for tears.' Say 'We lose what was never ours, Lo, we were fooled by a fond deceit; Because we chanced to be side by side, Because we were young and love is sweet, Love seemed there: but could love have died? When has decay touched immortal hours? Love was never ours.' Ah, my heart, is it true? is it true? Did all longings and fears mean no more? Whispers and vows and the gladness mean this? What, we grow wiser when years are o'er, And weary in soul of a mimic bliss! Did we but dream, hand in hand, we two? Must it needs be true?