My life has been a sacrifice
Unto the art of verse,
And I have paid the awesome price
Though life was made the worse;
Because, though it were never nice
And made me tense and terse,
It were the thing the Lord decree
By heaven up above,
That I might dwell in misery
And unrequited love,
And but a mockery of me
The whole of writing prove.
Therefore, dear Lord, though it be light
I beg to put away
My “labor and my leisure” quite
To have no more to say,
And all these verses I endite
Disperse as ocean spray.