Life without love! — Ah, what a wail goes up
From this poor world of manifold distress,–
What thousands drink the dregs of bitterness,
Nor find one drop of honey in the cup.
Life without love! — O poverty, and shame,
O vice, O drink, O selishness and care,
O harpies at each banquet of despair,
Setting how many wretched homes aflame!
Life without love! — Ye virgin souls that pine
For some one’s love, some cold unconscious one,
Pale patient plants that never see the sun,–
When will his long-desired glory shine?
Life without love! — Ye that have miss’d your mates,
Embitter’d hearts, whom Marriage blights unblest,–
O nightly daily worry and unrest,
Domestic storms, and never-dying hates!
Life without love! — Who long can live this life,
Where patience only hardens by her smile,
Where peace is nothing but perpetual guile,
And hope’s best hope is for a truce of strife?
Life without love! — This is but living death,
As love with life were double life to live:
Kind Heaven,– in grace some true deliverance give,
And quicken Life with Love’s delicious breath!
(Martin Farquhar Tupper)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Life Poems, Sadness Poems, Death & Dying Poems, War & Peace Poems, Heaven Poems, Hope Poems, Smiling Poems, Hatred Poems, Vice & Virtue Poems, Poverty PoemsBased on Keywords: harpies, embitter, never-dying, long-desired