You say: “Since life is cruel enough at best,”

You say: “Since life is cruel enough at best,”
You say: “Considering how our love is cursed,
And housed so bleakly that the sea-gull’s nest
Were better shelter, even as better nursed
Between the breaker and the stingy reeds
Ragged and coarse that hiss against the sand
The gull’s brown chick, and hushed in all his needs,
Than our poor love so harried through the land—
You being too tender, even with all your scorn,
To line his cradle with the world’s reproof,
And I too devious, too surrendered, born
Too far from home to hunt him even a roof
Out of the rain—” Oh, tortured voice, be still!
Spare me your premise: leave me when you will.