Classic Poem

If Love reveal himself, to haggard eyes,
Compact of lust and curiosity,
And turn a pallid face away from thee
To seek elsewhere a harlot's paradise;
If Faith be perjured and if Truth be lies,
And thy great oak of life a rotten tree,
Where shall we hide, my soul, how shall we flee
The eternal fire, the worm that never dies?

O born to be rejected and denied,
Scorn of the years and sport of all the days,
Must the gray future still repeat the past?
O thrice betrayed and seven times crucified,
Is there no issue from unhappy ways,
No peace, no hope, no loving arms at last?