I

When thought doth rise: "This task I shall not bear,"
Pray ask thyself, who first did voice this dread?
“That's I,” thou say’st, with quite unthinking air,
Yet who art thou, whose will and words are said?

Thy flesh, no more than cells in fleeting dance,
And they but bonds of molecules confined;
Which in themselves from chance and clash advance,
Till void consumes the dust they leave behind.

Where lies thy self, if self be not but mist?
What holds thy soul if matter is not real?
A name? A tale? A thought that once was kissed
By stars that spoke in silence their appeal?

    Thou art the dream the dreaming world hath spun,
    No less than stars, no more than light undone.

II

What flask hath caught this heat, this sacred trace,
Where lust sublimed becomes a vapor thin?
It drips like gold through glass, with blushing face
A tincture steeped in jasmine, rose, and sin.

With ylang’s breath, and vetiver’s dark cry,
It stirs the heart like mercury in flame.
Vanillic smoke and sandal’s musk pass by
No base remains untouche, no pulse remains the same.

This scent's a nightly rite. An opiate divine.
Distilled in moonlight, aged in secret fire.
An aphrodesia forged by grand design,
A solvent for both agony and deep desire.

   No alchemist can grasp this fragrant art.
   The scent of a woman... naked, nameless, torn apart.

III

The higher climbs the man in moral grace,
The deeper grows the pit beneath his feet.
Each law he forged becomes the prison place,
And every vow ends up in foul deceit.

All great ideas cast shadows as they grow,
A creed once pure becomes the thing it fought.
The sharper ethic certainty, sharper the blows
For peace enforced by fear is dearly bought.

“To fight the beast, become the beast,” they say;
And “do no good, and you’ll receive no ill.”
Our hearts, divided, tear themselves each day
To help, to harm, to fight, or to stand still.

   Thus good and evil, locked in tight embrace,
   Are merely masks that share the same old face.