Classic Poem

You tell me that another has your heart,
And that until this time you have not known
What love is. And a wedded pair must part
Because an earlier, lesser love has flown.

You tell me this, and I say go your way
And read the answer in the coming years.
Were Wisdom's very self to bid you stay
Her words would fall on unattending ears.

I am not Wisdom's self, but this you'll learn:
New love is never rooted as the old;
And the old passion will revive and burn
Before the ashes of the new are cold.

Two trees that grow together to the sun
Become as one, and must as one remain;
A pair that live a dozen years as one,
Never, my friend, can be as two again.

So Nature orders it. And who shall say
It is not founded on a law divine?
But I have done with preaching; go your way.
Pass as the idle wind these words of mine.