Tragedy Poem by Patrick Dennis

There's a nerve twitch between thought and deed:
and between what is and what is to become.

Yet I see the going down of the sun
work to itself the wanton deeds of principle.

I would like a fixed path as the sun.
I would like the luxury of a tyrant rule.

There's something twists my lips to a sneer
and hardens my twin eyes to agates.

I fling offence at gaiety and break
down the sweet gentility of song.

Oh, who will teach me the rule? A slave
I would be. My freedom wants a yoke.

And my soul wants the steady certain ease
of a lifetime of servitude and hard labour.