Ah desire, goad of the human brute,
Fertile soil of the rooted ego,
How many ages to thee forego,
To unlearn savour of thy lesser fruit.

Ah desire, thou fervent rancid fever,
A passion-taint upon our works,
Thy black torch guiding our nights,
A veil and shadow our gaze to sunder.

Ah desire, purveyor of tinsel charm,
Peddling soiled wares to the blind,
Grey gravity upon the wingéd mind,
A lisping stutter upon the soul’s rhyme.

Flee, coarse tune, a new melody is mine,
I dance to its rhythms needing no chorus of thine!