Work Text:
Had I but tears to shed or breath to sigh;
Did my heart beat or pleasures speed its pace;
Were not my days o’er ruled by ebon sky,
Nor sunlit nights not spent in earth’s embrace;
Were I still as by my Maker made
Not yet unmade, reforged by death’s damned hand,
And life itself for unlife so betrayed;
Ere vanity did force my soul’s remand.
Ever cleaved from thought of Paradise
And stranger to a life that God began,
My touch forever naught but stone and ice
And I forever naught but mock of man.
Oh, could remembered passions this defeat
Hell’s fire itself would quail before my heat.