The Wanderer's Lament at Midnight

THE WANDERER'S LAMENT AT MIDNIGHT

I wander through the halls of Time,
Where shadows dance in measured rhyme,
And Memory, that tyrant sweet,
Lays siege unto my heart's retreat.

The moon hangs low, a pallid ghost,
Above the shores of England's coast,
Where once I walked with careless tread,
Before the dreams of youth had fled.

What folly drives us, mortal men,
To seek what we shall lose again?
We chase the phantom called Delight,
Through endless corridors of night,
And when at last we hold it near,
It vanishes like morning's tear.

I've sailed the wine-dark Grecian seas,
Felt Italy's seductive breeze,
Known passion's fire and glory's crown,
And watched them both come tumbling down.
For Fame is but a harlot's kiss—
A moment's rapture, then the abyss.

The world proclaims me wild and free,
Yet knows not half my misery!
This mask of mirth I wear so well
Conceals a private, burning hell.
I laugh that I may never weep,
And wake to flee the dreams of sleep.

Oh, Love! Thou art the cruelest jest
That Heaven plays upon the breast!
For every joy thy touch bestows,
A thousand sorrows interflows.
I loved too well, I loved too much,
And burned beneath thy fatal touch.

The candle gutters, low and dim,
The wine grows bitter at the brim,
And still I write these fevered lines
While Melancholy's ivy twines
About my soul with tendril deep—
The only mistress I may keep.

Let others praise the virtuous life,
The hearth, the home, the faithful wife—
For me, the storm, the surging wave,
The path that leads unto the grave!
I'll take my portion, wild and brief,
And drown my joy in boundless grief.

So pour the wine and dim the light,
For I shall wrestle with the night,
And when the dawn breaks cold and gray,
I'll curse it for another day.
The Wanderer must ever roam,
For all the world, yet nowhere home.

And should you find these pages torn,
When I at last am dead and gone,
Remember this—I lived, I burned,
I loved and lost and never learned.
For such is Fate's appointed part:
To break the proud, defiant heart.