Thomasine Dye

Mere Existence

 

My sole activity is mere existence

I live my life in quiet submission

So that nothing distracts from my task

I make sure my loneliness is here to last

 

Yet I know there’s something beyond

Otherwise I would not write these miserable songs

I believe it to be something real

But I would not be the first with misplaced zeal

 

Something that cannot be described

At least by any mortal mind

It is a state beyond being

The end of all things fleeting

 

What is the tragedy of dying young?

What curse to not live long?

How wretched to live to see

The death of love and dreams

 

How terrible a fate, to live many a day

To see your mind and body decay

I care nothing for the moralists and their talk of duty

In the end, Death is the martyr of beauty

 

Both young and old bodies fade away

But freed from its prison, the young soul is saved

The soul condemned to life loses everything else

And even that life becomes but a shadow of itself