Too Late Poem by David Lewis Paget

I should not have said I loved you
When at first you pressed me to,
For I carried too much baggage
From the past, and overdue,
It was bedded deep within me when
I woke each day at dawn,
And I found it crying in me for
A love, both dead and gone.

But your bright eyes had waylaid me,
And the heart upon your sleeve,
They would tempt me and would stay me
Every time I tried to leave,
You were sweet and loved me only
Which was what I couldn't do,
Though you soothed me and you played me
I'd not give myself to you.

Though I know I was a fool to care
For what had gone before,
I was anxious to reclaim it
So I pushed you out the door,
Though you persevered and held me
In the love that you had found,
I betrayed your finer feelings
When I covered that old ground.

Then the years piled up upon me
With the ‘we' becoming ‘us',
It was like a fateful journey
On an old and wayward bus,
And I came around to love you then
But not enough it seems,
For you saw me as unfaithful
And it shattered all your dreams.

The stronger that my love grew, yours
Would fade and disappear,
And the end of our love story was
To drown in bitter tears,
For in truth, I don't deserve you
As I now succumb to fate,
Though I love you more than ever
It's too little, and too late!

8 March 2017