Love’s Vanity by Arthur Bernard Miall

You have broken my life and my heart.
You have played for my soul and won ;
We may kiss and remember and part.
But wrhat you have done is done.

I wept out my heart at your sorrow^ :
You thought the sorrow my own.
You played with my love on the morrow
That pity for you had sown.

I wish I might learn to hate you,
But then were I utterly base.
I can but vainly await you,
Who never will turn your face.

There is nought in my life that is human
Save uttermost pity of you.
O hateful and suffering woman,
Look now at your lover and see :
I never did aught but love you,
But what have you done to me?

From: Miall, A. Bernard, Nocturnes and Pastorals: A Book of Verse, 1896, Leonard Smithers: London, p. 61.
(https://archive.org/details/cu31924013649946/)

Date: 1896

By: Arthur Bernard Miall (1876-1953)

Tags: 1896, arthur bernard miall, love’s vanity, poetry, you have broken my life and my heart