Love enraged


If this be life, let there be none of it;
If this be love, let me tread where fools tread.
The world be gone, for I am done with it;
No more are the days, all that lived is dead.
Why reside in this weak and petty place,
Where pitiful time’s mewling life is spent;
But to wear the stamp of war on my face
Now the music and the songs are absent,
And the seas roll on vacant shores? The birds
Cry to barren skies, and I, wound weary,
Spurn the paths of peace, shun the honeyed word
And rage against the wasting of the years.
Without you, the ways of life are empty;
And I despise the heavens that formed me.