Sovereign Self Thou

And it was written across the forge of ambition
Dismembering the vision, an inversion of form
To make a scourge of past prosperities
Pure desires warped in the crucible of deception

Bent to a numbing hiss
The whispered drone throughout the shrine

Submission in occlusion, drunk on masculine virtue
Backs breaking to tend the fields just to turn and set them ablaze

Bent to a numbing hiss
The whispered drone throughout the shrine

Retreating into isolation, the revelatory darkness
Where true nature is revealed—and strength is found wanting
Embrace aesthetic rigidities, adopt proscribed mores
Lay wreaths of blame, a desperate slip of guilt

Ever playing the mummer strutting on the stage of self
Seizing callous disregard
Assuming insensitive affectation
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war

Like bosom friendships to resentment sour'd
With rage envenom'd against our peace;
Desperate, restricting, sallow;
Pale and wan, crushed from the ravages