'Burn my old letters'-ah! for you
These words are easy to say,
For you, who know not the light they brought
To many a darksome day.

And, then, old letters to me are links
To those days forever gone;
For we cling to the past as age would cling
To youth, in its rosy dawn.

But the wintry air is chill without,
And the fire is faint and low,
So I'll gather them up-the page of to-day
With the date of long ago.

Gather them up and cast them in
Like trash, to the greedy flame;
And I marvel not that the world hath said,
'Friendship is only a name!'

For the human heart's a changeful thing,
And sometime we would borrow
The light, that other days have given,
To cheer us on the morrow.

And so, as I sit in the merry light
Of the blaze that upward flashes,
I think, like these, our dearest hopes
May come to dust and ashes.