WHEN LOVE WENT.

By Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

What whispered Love the day he fled?

Ah! this was what Love whispered;

“You sought to hold me with a chain;

I fly to prove such holding vain.

“You bound me burdens, and I bore

The burdens hard, the burdens sore;

I bore them all unmurmuring,

For Love can bear a harder thing.

“You taxed me often, teased me, wept;

I only smiled, and still I kept

Through storm and sun and night and day,

My joyous, viewless, faithful way.

“But, dear, once dearest, you and I

This day have parted company.

Love must be free to give, defer,

Himself alone his almoner.

“As free I freely poured my all,

Enslaved I spurn, renounce my thrall,

Its wages and its bitter bread.”

Thus whispered Love the day he fled!