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.”