Later Sonnets: Her Secret Is Betrayed

ONCE on a happy time you said to me
" Give me your soul, O give me, dear, your soul " ;
And I, who thought not of that other toll,
Gave with it too my body utterly.
This rhymed love you left me, my sole fee,
Which I must treasure ; and the dear-bought scroll,
Now that your pleasure had become my dole,
I laid away with all my life to be.
— To-day you take it from me, my poor rhyme,
And lightly ask me, " Why these foolish tears ? "
You give the world my secret — " it was time.
What can it matter after all these years ? "
Ay. What in truth ? Yet herein lies the smart,
That grief for you no longer grieves my heart.