Only a simple rhyme of love and sorrow, <br /> <br />Where 'blisses' rhymed with 'kisses,' 'heart,' with 'dart:' <br /> <br />Yet, reading it, new strength I seemed to borrow, <br /> <br />To live on bravely and to do my part. <br /> <br />A little rhyme about a heart that's bleeding— <br /> <br />Of lonely hours and sorrow's unrelief: <br /> <br />I smiled at first; but there came with the reading <br /> <br />A sense of sweet companionship in grief. <br /> <br />The selfishness of my own woe forsaking, <br /> <br />I thought about the singer of that song. <br /> <br />Some other breast felt this same weary aching; <br /> <br />Another found the summer days too long. <br /> <br />The few sad lines, my sorrow so expressing, <br /> <br />I read, and on the singer, all unknown, <br /> <br />I breathed a fervent though a silent blessing, <br /> <br />And seemed to clasp his hand within my own. <br /> <br />And though fame pass him and he never know it, <br /> <br />And though he never sings another strain, <br /> <br />He has performed the mission of the poet, <br /> <br />In helping some sad heart to bear its pain.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/only-a-simple-rhyme/
