LOVE, REPROACHFUL, a poem

THEN Love, reproachful, sighed: "Art thou become
     Voiceless, who in my praise wast eloquent?
     To wound my name unto high heaven is sent
A vain lamenting,—the exordium
Of fruitless plaint and chiding wearisome,—
     While they to whom my chiefest joys are lent,
     To worship me in silence are content!"
Love, even so: whom thou dost bless are dumb.

Listen! That strain of ecstasy and pain!
Far-echoing from Thrace, it breathes again,
     Lost Philomela's passion to prolong;
Yet nested near in solitude, the dove—
Beneath thy very pinions, gracious Love!
     Coos to her mate, but sings the world no song!

"Love, Reproachful" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume II.