The Undivine Comedy

• Alas! thou sufferest, too, although thy pangs

Bring naught to birth, nothing create, nor serve!

• Not that I rise against thee, Poetry,

Mother of Beauty, of ideal Life!

But I must pity him condemned to dwell

Within the limits of these whirling worlds

In dying agonies, or yet to be,

Doomed to sad memories, or prophecies,

Perchance remorse, or vague presentiments,—

Who gives himself to thee! for everywhere

Thou ruinest wholly those who consecrate

Themselves, with all they are, to thee alone,

Who solely live the voices of thy glory!

• Painting the sensual with thy hues divine,—

Thou turn'st away thy face, while scattering

Perchance upon his brow some fading flowers,

Of which he strives to twine a funeral crown,

Spending his life to weave a wreath of death!