The Unattainable by Kathleen Dalziel

Many and many's the brand of Love sold by the huckster Life,
   Crying his wares in the market place and the wide crossways;  
The love like a rose and the love that grows with the thorns of passion rife,
   But the love that was made in fairyland in the land of fairy stays.

Some of the brands are brought with gold and some with prayer and fasting;
   Some (and the sweetest) for nothing at all, and some dear got with pain;  
Most of them fair to first sight, and few of them made to lasting,
   But the loves that were wrought in fairyland in fairyland remain.

We choose each prize with blindfold eyes, a strange method, surely;
   All of us seeking and few to find, that aught is what it seems;
The gold turns brass and the keenest pass where a jewel gleams purely.
   But the rarest, fairest love of all we only find in dreams.

The first love and the false love, lad's love gathered with rue;
   Old loves laid in rosemary that buyers pass by these days;
And Time alone is the harvester and winnows the false from true,   
   But the love that belongs to fairyland in the land of fairy stays.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 17 August 1929

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.