I hate all Nature’s mockery of life.
The laugh is grown a grin; the gentle strife
Of birds and waves and winds at play is grown
A curse, a cruelty. My wife! my wife!
I am broken, I cannot sleep, I cannot die.
Pain, pain for ever! Nature is a lie,
The gods a lie. Myself? but I am found
Sole serious in the hateful comedy.
Blackness, all blackness! How I hate the earth,
The curse that brought my being into birth.
I, loving more her loveliness, am bound
And broken—thrice more bitter for my mirth !
Song, was it song I trusted in? Or thou,
Apollo, was it thou didst bind my brow
With laurel for a poison-wreath of hell
To sear my brain and blast my being now?
A band of most corroding poison wound
Dissolving with its venom the profound
Deep of my spirit with its terrible
Sense without speech and horror without sound.
A devil intertwining in my heart
Its cold and hideous lust, a twiforked dart
Even from the fatherly and healing hand—
The double death without a counterpart
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