a tale.......

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends....

i tell a tale of a person here...
mingled yarn is his web of life
good and ill together...

infant in law,
and urchin in years,
In mind a slave to every vicious joy,
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd,
adept in lies and fiend in deceit;
Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child,
Fickle as wind, of intentions wild;
Woman his dupe, his ignorant friends a tool,
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school...


He, who grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him;
nor below can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife of silent, sharp endurance:
he can tell--
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves,
yet rife With airy images, and shapes which dwell

His love was passion's essence—as a tree
On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
Thus, and enamored, were in him the same
For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run,
Nor made atonement when he did amiss,
Had sigh'd to many though he lov'd but one,
And that lov'd one, alas! could never be his.

Nor was all love shut from hint, though his days
of passion had consumed themselves to dust
In flight he shall be surely wise,
escaping from temptation's snare
he cannot view my Paradise
Without the wish of dwelling there.

though pleasure fires the maddening souls
the heart--
the heart is lonely still...

yet there are things whose strong reality
outshines our fairy land;
in shape and hues
more beautiful than our fantastic sky.
A thousand hearts beat happily;

and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look 'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.