Loveless

As some poor starveling at a palace gate Sees curtained gleams from banquet-litten halls, Hears song out-ringing from the festal walls, Scents viands that shall princely palates sate, Yet in the outer gloom may only wait, Crouched in the cold, thrice-thankful for some least Mean morsel flung him from the plenteous feast— Poor bondman to the ball and chain of Fate! So, lonely at Love's outer gate I stand And glimpse the brightness and the bliss within, Where love-lit smiles transmute the dark to day— I wait without—I may not enter in; Long, wistfully, I gaze—then void of hand And starved of spirit, sadly turn away.