LOVE’S REWARD

For Love I labored all the day,

Through morning chill and midday heat.

For surely with the evening gray,

I thought, Love’s guerdon shall be sweet.

At eventide, with weary limb,

I brought my labors to the spot

Where Love had bid me come to him;

Thither I came, but found him not.

For he with idle folk had gone

To dance the hours of night away;

And I that toiled was left alone,

Too weary now to dance or play.

Francis W. Bourdillon.