The One before the Last

I dreamt I was in love again
  With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
  Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
  The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
  Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

The boy's woe was as keen and clear,
  The boy's love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
  Hurt quite as much as you.

     * * * * *

Sickly I pondered how the lover
  Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
And sentimentalizes over
  What earned a better doom.

Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,
  Strews pinkish dust above,
And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime!
  But this - ah, God! - is Love!"

- Better oblivion hide dead true loves,
  Better the night enfold,
Than men, to eke the praise of new loves,
  Should lie about the old!

     * * * * *

Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty.
  But here's the worst of it -
I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty,
  You ever hurt a bit!

  11th January 1910