Poem by Louisa Sarah Bevington

Then and Now

ONCE the question was to know
Why you came, and why would go,
Once it seem to import so
That I should approve you;
Ay, in lost days dead and dear,
When so often you were here,
I could hope and I could fear;
Now I only love you.

Since your hand hath closed the door,
In my soul for evermore
All is stiller than before;
And the end--who knoweth?
You have gone; to spend your breath,
Haply, on the fields of death
Where the war-fire thundereth
And the palm-tree groweth.

Waves and fates have rolled between,
Things are not that once have been,
Changed the actors, changed the scene
Where the singer stayeth;
If her love hath wrought her woe,
E'en to you, who only know
That it ever hath been so,
Only song betrayeth.

1. Steel or Gold?
2. The Most Beautiful Thing
3. “Merle Wood”
4. “Egoisme a Deux”
5. Cloud-Climbing

John McCrae Then and Now ("Beneath her window in the fragrant night")

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