Love’s Compensation
I went before God, and he said,“What fruit of the life I gave?”“Father,” I said, “It is dead,And nothing grows on the grave.”
Wroth was the Lord and stern:“Hadst thou not to answer me?Shall the fruitless root not burn,And be wasted utterly?”
“Father,” I said, “forgive!For thou knowest what I have done;That another’s life might liveMine turned to a barren stone.”
But the Father of Life sent fireAnd burned the root in the grave;And the pain in my heart is direFor the thing that I could not save.
For the thing it was laid on meBy the Lord of Life to bring;Fruit of the ungrown treeThat died for no watering.
Another has gone to God,And his fruit has pleased Him well;For he sitteth high, while I—plodThe dry ways down towards hell.
Though thou knowest, thou knowest, Lord,Whose tears made that fruit’s root wet;Yet thou drivest me forth with a sword,And thy Guards by the Gate are set.
Thou wilt give me up to the fire,And none shall deliver me;For I followed my heart’s desire,And I labored not for thee:
I labored for him thou hast setOn thy right hand, high and fair;Thou lovest him, Lord; and yet’Twas my love won Him there.
But this is the thing that hath been,Hath been since the world began,—That love against self must sin,And a woman die for a man.
And this is the thing that shall be,Shall be till the whole world die,Kismet:—My doom is on me!Why murmur since I am I?
=Philadelphia=, August, 1898.