Richard Watson Gilder

The New Day. Part 4. 13. After Many Days

Dear heart, I would that after many days,
      ⁠When we are gone, true lovers in a book
      ⁠Might find these faithful songs of ours. "O look!"
      ⁠I hear him murmur while he straightway lays
His finger on the page, and she doth raise
      ⁠Her eyes to his. Then, like the winter brook
⁠      From whose young limbs a sudden summer shook
⁠      The fetters, love flows on in sunny ways.
I would that when we are no more, dear heart,
      ⁠The world might hold thy unforgotten name
⁠      Inviolate in these eternal rhymes.
I would have poets say: "Let not the art
      ⁠Wherewith they loved be lost! To us the blame
⁠      Should love grow less in these our modern times.