WHEN LOVE WENT.
Reading edition
What whispered Love the day he fled? Ah! this was what Love whispered; "You sought to hold me with a chain; I fly to prove such holding vain.
"You bound me burdens, and I bore The burdens hard, the burdens sore; I bore them all unmurmuring, For Love can bear a harder thing.
"You taxed me often, teased me, wept; I only smiled, and still I kept Through storm and sun and night and day, My joyous, viewless, faithful way.
"But, dear, once dearest, you and I This day have parted company. Love must be free to give, defer, Himself alone his almoner.
"As free I freely poured my all, Enslaved I spurn, renounce my thrall, Its wages and its bitter bread." Thus whispered Love the day he fled!