Hélas
To drift with every
passion till my
soul
Is a stringed
lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and
austere control?
Me thinks my life is a twice-written
scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and
virelay,
Which do not but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's
dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of
God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance --
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?
-
Oscar Wilde