Classic Poem

I LABOURED these six years
For thee, thou bitter sweet;
Yea, more than it is meet
That speech should now rehearse
Or song should rhyme to thee;
But love gains never aught
From thee, by depth or length;
Unto thine eyes such strength
And calmness thou hast taught,
That I say wearily: —
" The child is most like me,
Who thinks in the clear stream
To catch the round flat moon
And draw it all a-dripping unto him, —
Who fancies he can take into his hand
The flame o' the lamp, but soon
Screams and is nigh to swoon
At the sharp heat his flesh may not withstand."

Though it be late to learn
How sore I was possest,
Yet do I count me blest,
Because I still can spurn
This thrall which is so mean.
For when a man, once sick,
Has got his health anew,
The fever which boiled through
His veins, and made him weak,
Is as it had not been.
For all that I had seen,
Thy spirit, like thy face,
More excellently shone
Than precious crystal in an untrod place.
Go to: thy worth is but as glass, the cheat,
Which, to gaze thereupon,
Seems crystals, even as one,
But only is a cunning counterfeit.

Foil'd hope has made me mad,
As one who, playing high,
Thought to grow rich thereby,
And loses what he had.
Yet I can now perceive
How true the saying is
That says: " If one turn back
Out of an evil track
Through loss which has been his,
He gains, and need not grieve."
To me now, by your leave,
It chances as to him
Who of his purse is free
To one whose memory for such debts is dim.
Long time he speaks no word thereof, being loth:
But having asked, when he
Is answered slightingly,
Then shall he lose his patience and be wroth.