New Love And Old

In my heart the old love
Struggled with the new;
It was ghostly waking
All night through.

Dear things, kind things,
That my old love said,
Ranged themselves reproachfully
Round my bed.

But I could not heed them,
For I seemed to see
The eyes of my new love
Fixed on me.

Old love, old love,
How can I be true?
Shall I be faithless to myself
Or to you?

Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale (August 8, 1884 – January 29, 1933) was an American lyric poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri and her first poem publication was in 1907. Teasdale's style was characterized by clarity and simplicity, often focusing on themes of love, nature, and death. She won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize for her 1917 collection Love Songs. Unfortunately, she faced severe health issues and depression towards the end of her life, leading to her suicide in 1933.

Sara Teasdale

Winter Dusk

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

Youth And The Pilgrim

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

In Spring, Santa Barbara

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

To A Picture Of Eleonora Duse With The Greek Fire, In "Francesca da Rimini"

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

New And Old.

        I and new love, in all its living bloom,
    Sat vis-a-vis, while tender twilight hours
    Went softly by us, treading as on flowers.
        Then suddenly I saw within the room
        The old love, long since lying in its tomb.
    It dropped the cerecloth from its fleshless face
    And smiled on me, with a remembered grace
        That, like the noontide, lit the gloaming's gloom.

        Upon its shroud there hung the grave's green mould,
    About it hung the odor of the dead;
    Yet from its cavernous eyes such light was shed
        That all my life seemed gilded, as with gold;
    Unto the trembling new love '"Go," I said
        "I do not need thee, for I have the old."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Ghost

I went back to the clanging city,
I went back where my old loves stayed,
But my heart was full of my new love's glory,
My eyes were laughing and unafraid.

I met one who had loved me madly
And told his love for all to hear,
But we talked of a thousand things together,
The past was buried too deep to fear.

I met the other, whose love was given
With never a kiss and scarcely a word,
Oh, it was then the terror took me
Of words unuttered that breathed and stirred.

Oh, love that lives its life with laughter
Or love that lives its life with tears
Can die, but love that is never spoken
Goes like a ghost through the winding years....

I went back to the clanging city,
I went back where my old loves stayed,
My heart was full of my new lo...

Sara Teasdale

The New Love

I thought my heart was death chilled,
    I thought its fires were cold;
But the new love, the new love,
    It warmeth like the old.

I thought its rooms were shadowed
    With the gloom of endless night;
But the new love, the new love,
    It fills them full of light.

I thought the chambers empty,
    And proclaimed it unto men;
But the new love, the new love,
    It peoples them again.

I thought its halls were silent,
    And hushed the whole day long;
But the new love, the new love,
    It fills them full of song.

Then here is to the new love,
    Let who will sing the old;
The new love, the new love,
    'Tis more than fame or gold.

For it gives us joy for sorrow,
    And it gives us warmth for cold;

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Old Maid

I saw her in a Broadway car,
The woman I might grow to be;
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me.
Her hair was dull and drew no light,
And yet its color was as mine;
Her eyes were strangely like my eyes,
Tho' love had never made them shine.

Her body was a thing grown thin,
Hungry for love that never came;
Her soul was frozen in the dark,
Unwarmed forever by love's flame.

I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me,
His eyes were magic to defy
The woman I shall never be.

Sara Teasdale

Young Love

I

I cannot heed the words they say,
The lights grow far away and dim,
Amid the laughing men and maids
My eyes unbidden seek for him.

I hope that when he smiles at me
He does not guess my joy and pain,
For if he did, he is too kind
To ever look my way again.

II

I have a secret in my heart
No ears have ever heard,
And still it sings there day by day
Most like a caged bird.

And when it beats against the bars,
I do not set it free,
For I am happier to know
It only sings for me.

III

I wrote his name along the beach,
I love the letters so.
Far up it seemed and out of reach,
For still the tide was low.

But oh, the sea came creeping up,
And washed the name away,
And on the san...

Sara Teasdale

With Some Old Love Verses

Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song,
The changing story of the wandering quest
That found at last its ending in thy breast -
The love it sought and sang astray so long
With wild young heart and happy eager tongue.
Much meant it all to me to seek and sing,
Ah, Love, but how much more to-day to bring
This 'rhyme that first of all he made when young.'

Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecy
For whose poor silver thou hast given me gold;
Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair
Only because some hints of Thee they were:
Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old,
How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee.

Richard Le Gallienne