Classic Poem

Is love eternal in the highest souls?
Is it, then, low to love, and love again?
Spring goes, and comes back every year to throw
Fresh garlands of old kinds on field and fen.
Though not the same, are they not just as sweet,
These violets crushed beneath our passing feet?

I do not love thee, dearest, as I loved, —
As good, but not the same, my love for thee.
I can for thee re-sing the old dear song,
Merely transposing to another key.
Throw not on me that icy look of blame, —
What matter, if the tune remain the same?

Ask not the river for a last year's tide
She yielded tributary to the sea;
Ask not of fate long years of garnered love,
Stored up with prescience when I knew not thee.
Ask for my every drop of blood up to the last,
But do not, in God's name, require the past.