Baskadia

Always have I heard of tragedies

Which hound and nip at a man 

Till he becomes but a ghost 

Of self loathing and spite 

That naught he does may please

And if very hard indeed he ran

In the labyrinth that he becomes lost

There still exists for him no respite 

Always have I heard of failures 

Which torture the soul of a man 

Turning him into a resentful husk 

As surely as if he is a leper

That they become wounds to endure 

Till all lingering hopes are wan 

And he a shamefaced wight of dusk

Walking lone under the Dippers. 

Always have I heard of all these 

And to you, poem, I infuse them 

For I am now become that man 

Pockmarked with his many failings 

Levy me with your heavy fees 

That I may be rid of this emblem 

And say not that my fate I bemoan 

Though I am become denizen of the evening.