Condemned to life, a happier condemnation
Than I deserved, I serve my sentence full,
Clasping it to me at each indication
That this time love is not the paradox
By which, whatever it contains, my cell
Contains the absolute, because it locks.
It all led up to this, a simple law
Passed by ourselves, which holds me in its power.
Not till I stopped the theft of all I saw
Just for the having’s sake, could it be passed.
Now I refer disposal of each hour
To this, a steady precedent at last.
My sentence stipulated exercise
Painful and lonely in the walks of death
With twittering clouds of spirits, still there lies
Beneath the common talk my single hope:
I must get back inside the cage of breath
For absence twitches on the loosened rope.
Marched off to happiness, I quarry stone
Hour after hour, and sweat my past away.
Already I have made working alone
Notable excavations, and the guard,
Turning desire, who eyes me all the day,
Has no use for his whip, I work so hard.
Condemned to hope, to happiness, to life,
Condemned to shift in your enclosing eyes,
I soon correct those former notions rife
Among the innocent, or fetter-maimed.
For law is in our hands, I realise:
The sentence is, condemned to be condemned.
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