Page:Poet Lore, volume 1, 1889.djvu/24

8 grace from one who covertly encores the swift vengeance portrayed in "A Forgiveness," or the undying unforgetfulness of the verses I have just quoted. Let the poet make his own apology, for himself, for me, and for all our sex. I find it in his "Parleyings with Daniel Bartoli":

I turn another facette of this gem. What has this singer to say of the permanence of love? What replies he to Tennyson's question?

Like Tennyson's, his answer is,—

This answer is given in more than one passage, and when treating of more than one type of temperament. We cannot shake off our old loves. They come unbidden to our feasts; their cold ghosts take up their abode in our new houses; they slip their shadowy arms between us and our new embraces. So the poet in "St. Martin's Summer,"—