Obadiah Cyrus Auringer - The Slayer lyrics

Ah, Poesy! thou glorious, deadly thing, Fair to create and merciless to slay, What have we done to thee, that day by day Thou wearest us with fruitless suffering? Is it for thine own glory thou dost wring These souls with pangs that waste our hearts away, This fairest web of life to fret and fray, Weaving thereof our grave-clothes while we sing? Thou art like Love, that wastes us in our spring,— Or art thou Love's own self, though grown less gay, That in this guise dost lead us still astray And cheat us with the glitter of a wing? I know not; only when I look I see Toil paid with pain and faith with mockery.