A RECOMPENSE.
I raised my hands against my fate,
I struck her frowning brows between;
‘I will be good, I will be great,
No matter what has been.
‘What care I if before my time
Dead men their passions left to me?
Can I not tune my life to rhyme
From discord played by thee?’
She struck my pencil from my grasp,
And here my first ambition ends.
How bitterly the loss unmans!
She had so many friends.
Love saw my struggle and was glad;
For love’s sweet sake I struggled on,
Till love grew tired loving, then
I cursed the sun that shone.
