I and new love, in all its living bloom, 
 Sat vis-à-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 gloom.

Upon its shroud there hung the grave?s green mould, 
 About it hung the odour 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.?