Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Here you will find thePoemAn Insincere Wish Addressed to a Beggarof poet Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

An Insincere Wish Addressed to a Beggar

We are not near enough to love, I can but pity all your woe; For wealth has lifted me above, And falsehood set you down below. If you were true, we still might be Brothers in something more than name; And were I poor, your love to me Would make our differing bonds the same. But golden gates between us stretch, Truth opens her forbidding eyes; You can't forget that I am rich, Nor I that you are telling lies. Love never comes but at love's call, And pity asks for him in vain; Because I cannot give you all, You give me nothing back again. And you are right with all your wrong, For less than all is nothing too; May Heaven beggar me ere long, And Truth reveal herself to you!