An Insincere Wish Addressed to a Beggar
We are not near enough to love,
I can but pity all your woe;
For wealth has lifted me above,
And falsehood set you down below.
If you were true, we still might be
Brothers in something more than name;
And were I poor, your love to me
Would make our differing bonds the same.
But golden gates between us stretch,
Truth opens her forbidding eyes;
You can't forget that I am rich,
Nor I that you are telling lies.
Love never comes but at love's call,
And pity asks for him in vain;
Because I cannot give you all,
You give me nothing back again.
And you are right with all your wrong,
For less than all is nothing too;
May Heaven beggar me ere long,
And Truth reveal herself to you!
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
We are not near enough to love,
I can but pity all your woe;
For wealth has lifted me above,
And falsehood set you down below.
If you were true, we still might be
Brothers in something more than name;
And were I poor, your love to me
Would make our differing bonds the same.
But golden gates between us stretch,
Truth opens her forbidding eyes;
You can't forget that I am rich,
Nor I that you are telling lies.
Love never comes but at love's call,
And pity asks for him in vain;
Because I cannot give you all,
You give me nothing back again.
And you are right with all your wrong,
For less than all is nothing too;
May Heaven beggar me ere long,
And Truth reveal herself to you!
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
