Taedium Vitae

TO stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear

This paltry age's gaudy livery

To let each base hand filch my treasury

To mesh my soul within a woman's hair

And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom,--I swear

I love it not! these things are less to me

Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea

Less than the thistle-down of summer air