THE UNDIVIDED HEART.
Reading edition
AFTER THE MANNER OF AN EARLY ENGLISH POET.
———
BY MYRRHA.
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When the rich merchant sendeth out his store,
To multiply in foreign lands and seas,
He scattereth it to every friendly shore,
And spreads his sails to every favoring breeze.
Then, if one bark, more luckless than the rest,
Should chance make shipwreck on some fatal coast,
Seeing he is of many more possest,
He comforts him, although that one be lost.
But one rich argosy holds all my store—
If harm befall that one, what comes of me?
Must I in beggary wander evermore,
Subsistence craving of cold charity?
How should I bear to think upon the day
When Fortune’s gifts were showered upon my head
Would not my misery more heavy weigh.
In view of happiness remembered?
Then let me rather trust my life also,
In that one ship where all my riches be,
That wheresoe’er she goeth I may go,
And toss with her upon the faithless sea.
Then, if the tempest bow the sturdy mast,
And horrid billows sweep the shuddering deck,
When every help and every hope is past,
Calmly I’ll perish with my treasure’s wreck.