Classic Poem

Can another love be born
In heart that love has left outworn;
Appearing dead to sweet desire
Its mouths of earth once mounts of fire?

Question first, if thou would'st know,
This wilful love that wasted so;
And ask one heart that wildly went
To ashes, why the flames are spent.

Was it to our heavens bared
Reflectively when forth it fared?
And knew it when it took the leap
Of whether shallow, whether deep?

Loved she an angel of the light?
All meaner forms must woman slight.
Or was the Prince of Darkness he,
Her wreck is out in deepest sea.

But less than either, bids the mind
Right measure of the man to find;
From wider knowledge, keener thought,
To fathom how the spell was wrought.

And has he borne his manhood high,
For whom she cast that gambler's die,
Her heart? And doth her spirit through
The senses read, and love renew?

Ah, that first love! It comes to prove
How creatures of the senses love;
Before the brain has gained control
To show how they may love in soul.

Give life to Life; in turn it gives.
Believe thy heart alive; it lives.
Know Love more heavenly than of old
Revealed, and Love will not be cold.

The Past is dust: thy heart is blood;
It bears thy fate upon its flood,
Set it on nobleness, and soon
A nobler love will crown thy noon.