English poem
Poem 122 (If you were true, we still…)
by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907)
If you were true, we still might be Brothers in something more than name; And were I poor, your love to me Would make our differing bonds the same.
But golden gates between us stretch, Truth opens her forbidding eyes; You can't forget that I am rich, Nor I that you are telling lies.
Love never comes but at love's call, And pity asks for him in vain; Because I cannot give you all, You give me nothing back again.
And you are right with all your wrong, For less than all is nothing too; May Heaven beggar me ere long, And Truth reveal herself to you!
More by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
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- Poem 113 ("Nature, be thou my monitress!" I…)
- Poem 114 (Whether it was the outward eye…)
- Poem 118 (What blindness is it that doth…)
- Poem 126 (It went adown the dusty road…)
- Poem 128 (The clock is busy Man with…)
- Poem 129 (Why must thou, Wind, the silent…)
- Poem 133 (Utter the praise of ancestors like…)