Explore "The Pessimist (other Verses)" by Harry Graham on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(_After Maeterlinck_)
Life's bed is full of crumbs and rice, / No roses float on my lagoon; / There are no fingers, white and nice, / To rub my head with scented ice, / Or feed me with a spoon.
I think of all the days gone by, / Replete with black and blue regret; / No comets light my glaucous sky, / My tears are hardly ever dry, / I never can forget!
I see the yellow dog, Desire, / That strains against the lead of Hope, / With lilac eyes and lips of fire, / As all in vain he strives to tire / The hand that holds the rope.
I see the kisses of the past, / Like lambkins dying in the snow, / The honeymoon that did not last, / The tinted youth that flew so fast, / And all this vale of woe.
So, raising high my raucous cry, / I ask (and Fates no answer give), / Why am I pre-ordained to die? / O cruel Fortune, tell me, why / Am I allowed to live?