Tonight I can compose the saddest songs,
The songs that well from deep within the depths
Where poetry originates; such sorrow
As underlies existence—so much pain,
Despair and anguish, this febricity
Of flesh and this debility of spirit
Which garners to a greatness seen by God
If there be God, a paucity to man,
While I am sick with sorrow, Evelina,
Which even finds expression not within
These paltry words: but nevermind it, I
Tonight compose the saddest songs, ring out
My woes within the dulcet tones of verse,
So very sad and hopeless. Ever it
Betides futility, for so as heirs
To shocks and sorrows, we complacent not
Can contemplate, reflect, upon the life
As doth transpire so and in halting manner
Arrive at its conclusion. We are born
To suffer and to grieve, and give lament
To the unvented sorrows of the ages
Within our time in passing, as it wanes,
And I, the words of others gone before,
The words of other men, vainly repeat
Or echo, filling silence with a kind
Of resonant, yet dull and yet unceasing,
Wearisome moan, as unto verse belongs:
Tonight I can compose the saddest songs.
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