Explore "The Temptation" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
YOU bring your love too late, dear, I have no love to buy it, / I spent my love on worthless toys, at fairs you do not know; / I am a bankrupt trader -- dear eyes, do not deny it, / I could have bought your love, dear, but that was long ago.
My soul has left me widowed, my heart has made me orphan, / Leave me -- all good things, dear, have left me -- leave me too! / For here is ice no tears of yours, no smiles of yours can soften: / Leave me, leave me, leave me, I have no love for you!
I have no flowers to give you, they grow not in my garden; / I have no songs to sing you, my songs have all been sung; / I have no hope of heaven, no faith in any pardon, / I might have loved you once, dear, when I was good and young.
I will not steal, nor cheat you; take back the heart you lent me.
O God, whom I have outraged, now teach me how to pray, / That love come never again so near me to torment me, / Lest I be found less faithful than, by Thy grace, to-day.