An Old Love Letter

I was reading a letter of yours to-day,     The date - O a thousand years ago!     The postmark is there - the month was May:     How, in God's name, did I let you go?     What wonderful things for a girl to say!     And to think that I hadn't the sense to know -     What wonderful things for a man to hear!     O still beloved, O still most dear.     "Duty" I called it, and hugged the word     Close to my side, like a shirt of hair;     You laughed, I remember, laughed like a bird,     And somehow I thought that you didn't care.     Duty! - and Love, with her bosom bare!     No wonder you laughed, as we parted there -     Then your letter came with this last good-by -     And I sat splendidly down to die.     Nor Duty, nor Death, would have aught of me:     "He is Love's," they said, "he cannot be ours;"     And your laugh pursued me o'er land and sea,     And your face like a thousand flowers.     "Tis her gown!" I said to each rustling tree,     "She is coming!" I said to the whispered showers;     But you came not again, and this letter of yours     Is all that endures - all that endures.     These aching words - in your swift firm hand,     That stirs me still as the day we met - -     That now 'tis too late to understand,     Say "hers is the face you shall ne'er forget;"     That, though Space and Time be as shifting sand,     We can never part - we are meeting yet.     This song, beloved, where'er you be,     Your heart shall hear and shall answer me.