Alas for Man by Edna St. Vincent Millay — Read

Alas for Man, so stealthily betrayed, / Bearing the bad cell in him from the start, / Pumping and feeding from his healthy heart

That wild disorder never to be stayed

When once established, destined to invade

With angry hordes the true and proper part, / Till Reason joggles in the headsman's cart, / And Mania spits from every balustrade.

Would he had searched his closet for his bane, / Where lurked the trusted ancient of his soul, / Obsequious Greed, and seen that visage plain;

Would he had whittled treason from his side

In his stout youth and bled his body whole, / Then had he died a king, or never died.