We are too old, too old for all this noise,
No wine of such new vintage shall control
Us who have known, what passionate joys
Once in some far, dark City of the Soul.
We are kings still and have, as kings, the choice
To spurn the proffered half and claim the whole.
3
Let us find out a new way; for it is plain
That all these old, worn, trodden roads suffice
Only those who will return again
Seeking shelter in their homes from Paradise.
Oh! let us find some solitary, green
Forgotten garden, where the sunrays fall
All blind and blurred and indistinct between
Cypresses lofty as earth's boundary wall;
Beneath whose shade shall glimmer forth half seen
Your face through the soft darkness when I call.
II.
1
If one, with visionary pen, should write
The love which might be ours, how would he call
These strange, perplexing fires veiled servants light
Down the dark vistas of our empty hall?
That love which might be ours, how would he name
That love? No bitter leaving of the brine,
No white or fading blossom twined like flame
Round any brow, Christian or Erycine,
Not all those loves blown to a windy fame
Shall find their counterpart in yours and mine.
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