Explore "Old and New" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Long have the poets vaunted, in their lays, / Old times, old loves, old friendship, and old wine. / Why should the old monopolize all praise? / Then let the new claim mine.
Give me strong new friends when the old prove weak / Or fail me in my darkest hour of need; / Why perish with the ship that springs a leak / Or lean upon a reed?
Give me new love, warm, palpitating, sweet, / When all the grace and beauty leave the old; / When like a rose it withers at my feet, / Or like a hearth grows cold.
Give me new times, bright with a prosperous cheer, / In place of old, tear-blotted, burdened days; / I hold a sunlit present far more dear, / And worthy of my praise.
When the old deeds are threadbare and worn through, / And all too narrow for the broadening soul, / Give me the fine, firm texture of the new, / Fair, beautiful, and whole!