Chapter LXVI

If in the years to come life bringeth thee
Some of love’s sorrow, to carry in thine hand;
If thou shouldst thus experience it, and
By its strange weight, be forced to think and see
What youth casts from it in its extasy;
Then only couldst thou learn to understand
How suffering hath held me in its band,
Since I first found how cruel love could be.
Ah me! Though by this means thou mightest come
To know the value of love’s equipage,
And in its chariot ride toward my soul,
I would not wish that thou shouldst know, as some
Like me have known, from youth to hoary age,
The price they pay to reach so dear a goal.