LOVE is dying. Why then, let it die. <br />Trample it down, that it die more fast. <br />What is a rose that has lost its bloom? <br />What is a fruit with its freshness past? <br />And where is the worth of the twilight gloom? <br />Let the night come when the day has gone by: <br />Let the dying die. <br /> <br />Leave your useless smiles and your tears, <br />Weepings and wooings are, oh, so vain! <br />Sunlights and rains bid the blossoms blow, <br />But waken no waning blossom again. <br />Nay, but say 'It was always so; <br />Love was not love in the other years, <br />There is nought for tears.' <br /> <br />Say 'We lose what was never ours, <br />Lo, we were fooled by a fond deceit; <br />Because we chanced to be side by side, <br />Because we were young and love is sweet, <br />Love seemed there: but could love have died? <br />When has decay touched immortal hours? <br />Love was never ours.' <br /> <br />Ah, my heart, is it true? is it true? <br />Did all longings and fears mean no more? <br />Whispers and vows and the gladness mean this? <br />What, we grow wiser when years are o'er, <br />And weary in soul of a mimic bliss! <br />Did we but dream, hand in hand, we two? <br />Must it needs be true?<br /><br />Augusta Davies Webster<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-after-years/
