To Lucinda III

The Sickness

It is sick, I know,

    The way I fawn,

Writing love-poems,

    Dreaming with glazed eyes:

Spring came early this year.

It is foolish, you know,

    To want what can never be yours.

To wish to be loved by Beauty,

    To seek out the agonies of Love,

But i have always been a fool.

It is fruitless, I know,

    To fall for the stars,

To stretch toward the moon,

    To worship the old gods:

But i have never born much fruit.

It is sad, I know, to be so distressed,

    To allow my heart to do what it does,

To dream into the walls,

    Ignoring all but my Love

        And Her.

So I am a fool, sad, fruitless and sick--

    But I would be no other way.

I hate my love, for it causes me pain,

    Yet still I love:

        Fruitlessly alone,

        Foolishly high,

        Sickly sweet,

        Sadly, a failure.