Orpheus

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 114