For Solitude

Espousing Melancholy- she sits

Her hair open, like auburn fields

At sunset, sipping ruby wine

From a crystal goblet, letting it 

Swirl while she swallows.

She whispers seductive silences

Into the ears of animal and man- 

Until all is shrouded by the fog of war.

She wears her knight's armour

And fights- with her fiend and foe-

Psyche, who shoots familiar arrows

And Death, lurking in his black garb

Comes to scavenge when all is dark.
Yet she stops Death sometimes, for He
An adversary as much as a friend-
And she distinguishes calm from calamity.

O Solitude, behold! For I may not be

Your war-puppet. Engulf me-

Let my rimes and songs be thine

Let me be the flickering lamp

In your Temple of Suns, feeble-

But infinite, somehow.