Classic Poem

If any song I sing for you should be
But made to please a poet's vanity,
A richly jewelled and an empty cup
In which no hallowed wine is offered up,
A thing of chosen rhyme and cunning phrase,
Fashioned that it may bring its maker praise;
If love in me grow only soft and sweet,
Remembering not with what worn and weary feet
It journeyed to your fields of golden grain,
The quiet orchards folded in the rain,
The twilight gardens and the morning birds;
If love remembers not and brings you words,
Words as your thanks; if in an idle hour
It breaks its sword and plays the troubadour—
Then may high God, the Universal Lord,
Break me, as Ifalse knight have broken my sword,
If I who have touched your hands should bring eclipse
To love's nobility with lying lips,
Having seen more terrible than gleaming spears
Your gentleness, your sorrow and your tears!