"POOR LOVE!" SAID LIFE, a poem

"POOR love!" said Life, "that hast nor gold,
     Nor lands, nor other store, I ween;
Thy very shelter from the cold
     Is oft but lowly built and mean."
"Nay: though of rushes be my bed,
     Yet am I rich," Love said.

"But," argued Life, "thrice fond art thou
     To yield the sovereign gifts of Earth—
The victor sword, the laureled brow—
     For visioned things of little worth!"
Love gazed afar with dreamt-lit eyes,
And answered, "Nay: but wise."

"Yet, Love," said Life, "what can atone
     For all the travail of thy years—
The yearnings vain, the vigils lone,
     The pain, the sacrifice, the tears?"
Soft as the breath breathed from a rose,
The answer came: "Love knows."

"'Poor Love!' said Life" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (December 1902), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.