Unwelcome
Why have you come again, unasked,
Back from the Limbo of the Lost?.
Why have you returned to me
After so long away?.
Why, my remembered darling,
Do you break my heart anew
Ten years beyond the sudden
Separation of our lives?.
They told me then, insistently,
That you were surely dead.
And bitterly I wept for you —
My lamentation long —
My life’s light plunged in darkness
And my future comfortless.
For five long years I lived alone
With my unsolaced grief,
Faithful to steadfast souvenirs
Of what our love had been.
Then there came one whose tender care
And warm solicitude
Withdrew me from my loneliness
and brought joy back to me.
Two further years I waited
Before my heart could yield
In the final sweet surrender
Which joined our future lives.
That was three years ago —
Such happy, unregretful years —
Although a memory of you
Was sometimes stirred — as dim
Reflections of our childhood
Unbidden rise and are,
With fond regret, resavoured
And then consciously dismissed
Amid adult realities —
So with my thoughts of you!.
Now you are here again, returned
Unasked into my life,
And I must choose between
The new-found treasure I had lost
And the later riches now enjoyed.
How can I do this thing?.
What is it I have done
Such painful torture to incur?.
Nothing can ever be
The same after today.
I shall be shadowed, till I die,
By one I loved and lost
But found again, and one I found
And love but cannot bear to lose,
(However great the pain
Of your preceding claim);
For my new love brought back to me
My happiness again.
The choice is made!.
My present lover trusts and cares
For me; I cannot set aside
That dear, unselfish tenderness;
Not even for your sake!.
Begone, once precious memory!.
Depart back to the void
Whence you just came!. Stay there,
Alone, as once I did, heartbroken
Those ten long years ago!.
I pity you your loneliness,
But you have had your day!.
Leave these unwelcome sentiments
To haunt my future years.
I will endure them willingly
In order to retain my present
Love’s companionship
Until my dying day.
