Illusions

I'm rather cross with myself, I won't lie.

An unprepared plunge onto flat water,

Followed by preposterous pangs of pain;

Though self-inflicted, my gall won't falter:

"Why, of all paths, is misfortune my main?"

"Your beauty dear had led me here," quoth I,

While on earth my assent was the culprit;

"My captor is that look in your eye",

While I know it full well to be...

"A crisp crackle of your spirit's fire"--

Stands as a shameful excuse for my pain;

"It set me alight and thus my desire"--

As I shelter myself from the cold rain.

Like a fog dense I have shrouded my faults

With another's impervious strengths;

My progress to love thus I check and halt,

Through blinding myself to such immense lengths.

As my wet singes soften,

I lose the part of me vain:

"It has led me here often--

It will not do again."