Life hurt me —
But I welcomed even pain —
So keen I was the full deep cup to drain,
I courted all the clamor and the strife,
The grief, the joy — I was in love with life.
Death hurt me —
But I wept and bowed my head
To learn the lesson Christ interpreted.
With dear Love’s help I raised my anguished eyes
And thought I read the message of the skies.
And then Love hurt me —
And I lost the whole
Of faith and peace. “Ah!” cried my struggling soul,
“If Love can fail its own, why live?*’ it said —
And lo! still-born, I found my soul was dead!
From: Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt, The Poems of Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 1921, Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York, p. 211.
(https://archive.org/details/poemscorinneroo00robigoog)
Date: 1919
By: Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (1861-1933)
From Troubles of The World 