Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Richard Le Gallienne 1866–1947

Love’s Poor

LeGallieR

YEA, love, I know, and I would have it thus;

I know that not for us

Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers,

I know this love of ours

Lives not, nor yet may live,

By the dear food that lips and hands can give.

Not, love, that we in some high dream despise

The common lover’s common Paradise;

Ah, God, if Thou and I

But one short hour their blessedness might try,

How could we poor ones teach

Those happy ones who half forget them rich:

For if we thus endure,

’T is only, love, because we are so poor.