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| TOO fond and faithful, wilt thou vainly yet | |
| Waste love on one who does not ask it now | |
| And, having wronged thee, seeks but to forget? | |
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| A fairer face smiles on his love, and thou, | |
| Thou with thy truth and fervour, stand aside, | 5 |
| Thou nobler-natured to her beauty bow. | |
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| There lingers in thee yet this much of pride | |
| That he who thus has wronged himself and thee | |
| Could never win thy truth whate’er betide, | |
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| Since in thine eyes he never more may be | 10 |
| So true and great that thou couldst bend to him, | |
| Oh never more! Why is thy heart not free? | |
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| Oh wilt thou weep because his eyes are dim? | |
| And wilt thou blush because his choice is shame | |
| Falling on one whose love is but a whim? | 15 |
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| An idle whim to stir a languid heart, | |
| A business chaffering of the more and less | |
| And rise and falling of the marriage mart. | |
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| Yet is it cause to deepen thy distress | |
| That he shall suffer for his misplaced trust? | 20 |
| For did he come into thy life to bless? | |
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| He buys a bauble something touched with rust, | |
| Passing through many hands that did not hold, | |
| Its lustre deadened by the market’s dust. | |
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| But what to thee, if he for this has sold | 25 |
| His faith, his living heart, his nobler mind, | |
| And given gold for that which is not gold? | |
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| Oh better that he should rest ever blind, | |
| Better for him—but should he wake to see | |
| The gem, he dreamed so pure, of paltriest kind, | 30 |
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| Too fond and faithful, what were that to thee? | |
| Thou hast thy sorrow; wherefore look beyond | |
| To sorrow for his sorrow that shall be? | |
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| Too fond and faithful, weak in being fond, | |
| False to thyself by faithfulness to him, | 35 |
| Since he has freed thee wherefore art thou bond? | |
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| And if his cup hold poison to the rim, | |
| Dregged with life’s malady beyond life’s cure, | |
| Why should its bitter drops to thine o’erbrim? | |
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| And yet, if thou hast love so deep and pure | 40 |
| That, whatsoever change the years shall bring, | |
| Before the sight of God it may endure, | |
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| And if it seem to thee a holy thing | |
| That, should he need it in his day of pain, | |
| Thou mayst have sister power of comforting, | 45 |
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| Well, if thy love be thus, let it remain; | |
| Thou wilt not fear to name it in thy prayer, | |
| As though it were some passion wild and vain. | |
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| Well, let it be, it may make less that care | |
| Centered in self thou canst not wholly quell, | 50 |
| If others, not thine own its place shall share. | |
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