Old Love-Letters

You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best:
A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me!
A dream hangs dead on a life it blest.
Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see
In the cold dank wind of our memory?
Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest?
Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery--
Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest.

And shall life fail if one dream be sped?
For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass?
Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for so
In soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow,
New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.'
See, here are our letters, so sweet--so dead.