O Muse, insatiate soul, demand
No more than lies in human power.
Man writes no word upon the sand
Even at the furious whirlwind's hour.
There was a time when joyous youth
Forever fluttered at my mouth,
A merry, singing bird, just freed.
Strange martyrdom has since been mine,
Should I revive its slightest sign,
At the first note, my lyre and thine
Would snap asunder like a reed.

My haunting grief has vanished like a dream,
Its floating fading memory seems one
With those frail mists bom of the dawn's first beam.
Dissolving as the dew melts in the sun.

What ailed thee then, O poet mine ;
What secret misery was thine.
Which set a bar 'twixt thee and me ?
Alas, I suffer from it still ;