The Winged Beetle

126 THE POET AT BAY YOU ? much-respected married man ! I ? whom all decent people ban ! You, of all people, come to me And ask about my poetry ? For shame, sir ! Well, if you insist ! Like an enamoured lutanist Graven on some bishop’s amethyst, So there is graven by fate’s steel And polished by time’s emery wheel This passion that consumeth me, Music that mars man’s dignity ! My love is like an unhealed scar That throbs and bleeds at the word war ! My love is like a masterless Hound, running wide on a false scent. I am the plaything of distress ; The marionette of the Event ! Yet this red lust that rots my sword Is the same flame that tempered it. Though my death be my birth’s reward, And folly be the prize of wit,