Any gift which is lauded may become a curse
If it denies one office, or lightens the purse.
Though I once drank deep of the sweetness of favor,
My visions bear the taint of unpleasant flavor.
I have become, it seems, an inconvenience
Not to be moved aside with relative lenience,
But to be swatted roughly like some irksome fly,
To be excised as a nagging, untimely sty
An irritant which confounds and clouds one’s vision.
I stand before you, an object of derision,
A dustbin to collect your calumny and scorn
(Paraded in the roughest cloth, hair rudely shorn)
Likened to that which falls from a donkey’s behind.
No matter, then—one finds that young thoughts in an old mind
Foment suspicion rather than learned debate,
(Though I would likely decline to participate)
The upshot being unpleasant realities.
So shake your fists, and mouth your banalities,
Yoke me with the verdict of trial by fire.
You shall, soon enough, do your dance with the pyre.
