MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE 1861-1907

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AN INSINCERE WISH ADDRESSED TO A BEGGAR

We are not near enough to love,

I can but pity all your woe;

For wealth has lifted me above,

And falsehood set you down below.

If you were true, we still might be

Brothers in something more than name;

And were I poor, your love to me

Would make our differing bonds the same.

But golden gates between us stretch,

Truth opens her forbidding eyes;

You can't forget that I am rich,

Nor I that you are telling lies.

Love never comes but at love's call,

And pity asks for him in vain;

Because I cannot give you all,

You give me nothing back again.

And you are right with all your wrong,

For less than all is nothing too;

May Heaven beggar me ere long,

And Truth reveal herself to you! 

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge was a British poet,  essayist and novelist. Robert Bridges, the Poet Laureate described her poetry as "wondrously beautiful . . . but mystical rather and enigmatic."  

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