A SONNET OF DESPAIR.
Reading edition
My captain calls to me to join the fray, Fame holds her fillet ready for my brow, Love stands with aching, open arms, and Thou, O God, to whom I impotently pray, Art ever ready to receive me—yea, Dost yearn for my poor prisoned soul—then how Becomes it that I linger in this slough Of idle, unclean days, till I grow gray? Bound am I to a corpse, face unto face, Of old iniquities, and dead desire, Which, fair and young, of old did I embrace. Now chains of habit, forged in Passion’s fire, Hold me forever in this durance base: Struggling to rise, I wallow in the mire. Claude Fayette Bragdon.
