New And Old

I and new love, in all its living bloom, Sat vis-à-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 gloom. Upon its shroud there hung the grave’s green mould, About it hung the odour 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.”