Classic Poem

HER SECRET IS BETRAYED

Once on a happy time you said to me
" Give me your soul, O give me, dear, your soul " ;
And I, who thought not of that other toll,
Gave with it too my body utterly.
This rhymed love you left me, my sole fee,
Which I must treasure; and the dear-bought scroll,
Now that your pleasure had become my dole,
I laid away with all my life to be.

— To-day you take it from me, my poor rhyme,
And lightly ask me, " Why these foolish tears? "
You give the world my secret — " it was time.
What can it matter after all these years? "
Ay. What in truth? Yet herein lies the smart,
That grief for you no longer grieves my heart.