Classic Poem

“There's no such thing as love.” So said
A flippant sneerer whom I met one day;—
And yet a child sat at her feet and played,
And a sweet babe upon her bosom lay.

Greatly I wondered. “No such thing as love?
Then what are these?” Her thin lip curled.
“These? These are incidents. Your words but prove
Your ignorance. You do not know the world.

“You wonder why I wed?” Still curled her lip;
Still flushed her dark eye with a bitter scorn:—
“Why, I am a woman—so obey the whip
That swings it lash above all women born.

“It is our fate. Let one dare disobey,
The whole world shun her. Let her dare to tread
In her own right, her independent way,
Men pelt her with this word of scorn: old maid.

“Speak common sense. Don't talk of love to me.
'Tis sickening—this stuff that poets sing.
You marry, you have filled your destiny;
But love—I tell you there is no such thing.”

Sadly I left her, sadly I went my way;
And then I met another—it was you.
Had I believed her? Well, I cannot say;
But now I know she did not tell me true.