Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN OLD LOVE LETTER, by RICHARD THOMAS LE GALLIENNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN OLD LOVE LETTER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I was reading a letter of yours to-day
Last Line: Your heart shall hear and shall answer me.
Subject(s): Letters


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 hadn'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 didn'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.





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