Old Letters

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Title:     Old Letters
Author: Alfred Noyes [More Titles by Noyes]

Read them? Strangle that sick cry?
Christ God, no!
Shut the box. Lock the lid.
You'll be safer--so.
Could you read one crooked word
Scrawled so long ago,
Love would rise before your face
And blind you, like a blow.

_Close it! Quickly! For I caught,
In a childish hand,
Something that she never thought
I should understand._

So I crouch. And shall our God
Prove Him baser yet,
He who filled her eyes with light
Quite renounce His debt,

Give her worlds to love, and then--
Ere the sun be set,
Strike her down and coffin all?
Christ, shall _He_ forget?

_Close it! Quickly! For I caught,
In a childish hand,
Something that she never thought
I should understand._

[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Old Letters

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