Love’s Reward

For Love I labored all the day,
Through morning chill and midday heat.
For surely with the evening gray,
I thought, Love’s guerdon shall be sweet.

At eventide, with weary limb,
I brought my labors to the spot
Where Love had bid me come to him;
Thither I came, but found him not.

For he with idle folk had gone
To dance the hours of night away;
And I that toiled was left alone,
Too weary now to dance or play.

Francis W. Bourdillon.