Fret not if fateful bar
Cause Love's delay,
Nor if some baleful star
Cross love alway.
Love crossed is better far
Than Love's decay.
Love hidden in the breast
Is hoarded gold;
By brooding thought caressed.
It ne'er grows old.
Love satisfied, at rest,
Oft waxes cold.
We pity those who part
To meet no more;
We sorrow for the smart,
The aching sore;
The joined, yet twain of heart,
Need pity more.
Two sit at table, where
Love once said grace;
A bond yet holds them there,
Still face to face;
Love, jostled out by Care,
Has fled the place.
There live whose wedding day
Was wreathed in gold;
Who saw time stretch away
With joys untold:
Their lives creep on to-day,
Gray, sad, and cold.
Love, set in daily groove,
Drops its highest mission.
The lives of thousands prove
This hard condition:
The sorest test of Love
Is Love's fruition.
O thou who through long years
Hast dwelt alone,
Whose love, enshrined in tears,
Holds secret throne,
This thought its comfort bears:
'Tis still thine own.
Ye wedded who remain,
(But ye are few)
Through all life's toil and pain,
Warm, tender, true,
Earth holds, on hill or plain,
None blest like you.
