LIV
How can it matter what they were to me,
The old, old lovers of the days long dead,
Nor what they whispered fondly, what I said,
Since it is all so far away from me!
O! blot not thus hours bought so bitterly
By useless brooding o’er things vanished,—dead;
The past, Dear, is a tide that’s hastenèd
Back, back again unto the shoreless sea.
O foolish, foolish fond one that you are!
How much you owe them of the long ago
Who taught me lore of love, its restless woe—
Love! Love! the bitter art whose masters are
Than Spartan mothers crueller since they say—
The arms that bring you joy likewise must slay!