Dismay has damned my pencil lead,
since Shelley’s stanzas I have read.
And now I’m lost – all uninspired.
His compositions have conspired
to strip me of my poet’s cloak.
I hid beneath it when I spoke,
or played with pen in poet’s pose.
Some other calling should have chose!
For I have flown too near the sun,
like Icarus’ wax wings, undone.
And all my sawdust-scented scrawl
(slow scribble of a baby’s crawl)
beside that god with silver tongue
sounds sham as siren’s sordid song.