The modern malady of love is nerves. Love, once a simple madness, now observes The stages of his passionate disease, And is twice sorrowful because he sees, Inch by inch entering, the fatal knife. O health of simple minds, give me your life, And let me, for one midnight, cease to hear The clock for ever ticking in my ear, The clock that tells the minutes in my brain. It is not love, nor love's despair, this pain That shoots a witless, keener pang across The simple agony of love and loss. Nerves, nerves! O folly of a child who dreams Of heaven, and, waking in the darkness, screams. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SEA-SHORE GRAVE by SIDNEY LANIER FAUST: SCENE 1. PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE CALLER HERRIN' by CAROLINA OLIPHANT NAIRNE SONG OF THE FATHERLAND by ERNST MORITZ ARNDT MY DWELLING by FRANCES HALLEY BROCKETT THE HIGHLAND BALOU by ROBERT BURNS FATHER O'SHEA WAS HIS REGIMENT'S PRIDE by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR |