YOU bring your love too late, dear, I have no love to buy it, <br />I spent my love on worthless toys, at fairs you do not know; <br />I am a bankrupt trader--dear eyes, do not deny it, <br />I could have bought your love, dear, but that was long ago. <br /> <br />My soul has left me widowed, my heart has made me orphan, <br />Leave me--all good things, dear, have left me--leave me too! <br />For here is ice no tears of yours, no smiles of yours can soften: <br />Leave me, leave me, leave me, I have no love for you! <br /> <br />I have no flowers to give you, they grow not in my garden; <br />I have no songs to sing you, my songs have all been sung; <br />I have no hope of heaven, no faith in any pardon, <br />I might have loved you once, dear, when I was good and young. <br /> <br />I will not steal, nor cheat you; take back the heart you lent me. <br />O God, whom I have outraged, now teach me how to pray, <br />That love come never again so near me to torment me, <br />Lest I be found less faithful than, by Thy grace, to-day.<br /><br />Edith Nesbit<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-temptation-2/
