Chapter CXXII

Oh, chide me not, if in this life I make
Poor tillage of the soil that men do plough;
And hold me not transgressor, if I now
Of this world’s order would not so partake.
Love’s harvester am I, my love at stake,
And by lost love my thought, it seems, must grow.
While others happy issue from it know,
My soul may not produce till my heart break.
Then plough, sad spirit, o’er the cheerless morrow,
And though thy husbandry be but a line,
Know that its fruit, born like a child of sorrow,
May bear thy likeness, and be thy life’s sign
In after years, so that the world shall borrow
Some portion of the love that once was thine.