Impressions: A Book of Verse/Love's Prayer

by Lilla Cabot Perry

 

LOVE'S PRAYER

LOVE without hope cannot endure, you say;
Let mine eyes utter what you know too well,
Thus shall their sad insistence ever tell
A love you shuuld not scorn or drive away,
A love in sorrow growing day by day
Like those pale blossoms in the shade that dwell
But reach more strenuous toward the half guessed spell
The sun faint flickering through thick leaves would lay.

I ask not of you what you cannot give,
I ask for this my love but leave to live,
Since dying it must suffer keener pain
Than living for your sake, though all in vain,
Yet not in vain if you grant one last prayer:
Let others share your joy; with me your sorrow share!