Love’S Wisdom

Woulds’t thou be loved? Then set thy love so high No man may win it, though he stand upon The utmost peaks with face against the stars. Aloof! Nor bend thee once to eyes that burn, And lips that plead, and hands that clasp and cling: The jewel that within the temple glowed A soul’s fit forfeit, as a bit of glass Cast with the pot-shreds lies when it is won.

Who minds him of the flower that undenied He plucked and kissed? Or for an hour forgets The rose that slipped his grasp and left a thorn Deep in his hands to mock their daring quest? And who hath loved the broad plains, lavish-souled Of all rich gifts that make life dear and good, As men have loved the mountains that afar Beckon in untrod grandeur, and deny?

Still is the vision dearer than the real, The dreaming sweeter than the dream fulfilled; For men love most the unattainable; Leaving the hearth-light, warm and near and kind, To follow pale auroras through the night, With beggared souls that to the winds have flung Their rarest gifts in hopeless bribery.

Woulds’t thou be loved? Then hold thyself apart,-- Nor yield to any, though he drain his life To flood thine own; for if thou give again Such barter in its usage carries scorn Of too free giving:--so thy love were lost, And thou uncrowned, that else had reigned a queen. Heaven’s self were transient lure, were it not set Too high for careless winning, over earth.