AN OLD LOVE LETTER

I was reading a letter of yours to-day,

The date — O a thousand years ago!

The postmark is there — the month was May:

How, in God's name, did I let you go?

What wonderful things for a girl to say!

And to think that I had n't the sense to know —

What wonderful things for a man to hear!

O still beloved, O still most dear.

“Duty” I called it, and hugged the word

Close to my side, like a shirt of hair;

You laughed, I remember, laughed like a bird,

And somehow I thought that you did n't care.

Duty!— and Love, with her bosom bare!

No wonder you laughed, as we parted there —

Then your letter came with this last good-by —

And I sat splendidly down to die.

Nor Duty, nor Death, would have aught of me:

“He is Love's,” they said, “he cannot be ours;”

And your laugh pursued me o'er land and sea,

And your face like a thousand flowers.

“Tis her gown!” I said to each rustling tree,

“She is coming!” I said to the whispered showers;

But you came not again, and this letter of yours

Is all that endures — all that endures.

These aching words — in your swift firm hand,

That stirs me still as the day we met — -

That now‘ tis too late to understand,

Say “hers is the face you shall ne'er forget;”

That, though Space and Time be as shifting sand,

We can never part — we are meeting yet.

This song, beloved, where'er you be,

Your heart shall hear and shall answer me.