The Poetry Corner

An Old Love Letter

By Richard Le Gallienne

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.