LOVE’S VICISSITUDES
Reading edition
As Love and Hope together Walk by me for a while, Link-armed the ways they travel For many a pleasant mile— Link-armed and dumb they travel, They sing not, but they smile.
Hope leaving, Love commences To practise on the lute; And as he sings and travels With lingering, laggard foot, Despair plays obligato The sentimental flute.
Until in singing garments Comes royally, at call— Comes limber-hipped Indiff’rence Free stepping, straight and tall— Comes singing and lamenting, The sweetest pipe of all.