The Enemy

My childhood was nought but a ravaging storm,
Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun;
The rain and the winds wrought such havoc and harm
That of buds on my plot there remains hardly one.

Behold now the Fall of ideas I have reached,
And the shovel and rake one must therefore resume,
In collecting the turf, inundated and breached,
Where the waters dug trenches as deep as a tomb.

And yet these new blossoms, for which I craved,
Will they find in this earth--like a shore that is laved--
The mystical fuel which vigour imparts?

Oh misery!--Time devours our lives,
And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts
On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!