  As some poor starveling at a palace gate Sees curtained gleams from banquet-litten halls, Hears song out-ringing from the festal walls, Scents viands that shall princely palates sate, Yet in the outer gloom may only wait, Mean morsel flung him from the plenteous feast— Poor bondman to the ball and chain of Fate! So, lonely at Love's outer gate I stand And glimpse the brightness and the bliss within, Where love-lit smiles transmute the dark to day— I wait without—I may not enter in; Long, wistfully, I gaze—then void of hand And starved of spirit, sadly turn away. |
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