Destiny maketh me to lie down in sullied pastures
and shows me in an instant what is mine.
I am mother of my will, steward of my nature.
I embrace the children born of the seed of my misgivings.
Inherent nature calls for us to mourn
a child of woe, born in Eden's harem
she is wandering. The taste of fruit still lingers
on her tongue as she is blessed, and passes through
the garden pleasure's widow.
So man may know the breadth of immorality
God hath given what I am to none but I.
And for you, oh child of nature,
naiveté of man, I will tell of all the
truths you've yet to know.
I am the sole proprietor of love's embittered light.
Suitor's move to choose me in a smooth unfettered sweep,
a lily plucked from dewy beds of beauty.
Among thieves I am the memory of prelapsarian song,
of how it was before we were the way we are.
The gaiety of goodness, weightlessness of night,
are wrought too plainly now to be mistaken...
those days are gone--and I,
an unlikely proctor for the movement of the age,
will stand alone.