The Penalty of Love

Sidney Royse Lysaght

 

If love should count you worthy, and should deign One day to seek your door and be your guest, Pause! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest, If in your old content you would remain, For not alone he enters; in his train are angels of the mist, the lonely guest Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed, And sorrow, and Life's immemorial pain.. He wakes desires you never may forget, He shows you stars you never saw before, He makes you share with him, for evermore, The burden of the world's divine regret. How wise you were to open not! and yet, How poor if you should turn him from the door!