Then and Now

Then.

He loved her, and through many years,
Had paid his fair devoted court,
Until she wearied, and with sneers
Turned all his ardent love to sport.

That night within his chamber lone,
He long sat writing by his bed
A note in which his heart made moan
For love; the morning found him dead.

Now.

Like him, a man of later day
Was jilted by the maid he sought,
And from her presence turned away,
Consumed by burning, bitter thought.

He sought his room to write—a curse
Like him before and die, I ween.
Ah no, he put his woes in verse,
And sold them to a magazine.

Analysis:

It contemplates human mistakes in the past that helps the present to form a new conception and take different paths. The first stanza describes a man deeply in love, but sadly when his lover is weary of the relation he is dump. With all his dreams destroyed, he commits suicide. In the second stanza the new guy is different. He falls in love, but he drives out his feeling through expressing them on paper. “Then and Now,” it gives a hint that the past can change the future by taking in account mistakes made to not walk in the same path again.