The Year Had Started Bravely

The year had started bravely, With assurances anew With life and hope anew O, but the knave – he played me, With assurances untrue! To contemplate it slays me - His promises untrue! Yet years drone on like drumbeats, The monotony of years The bleak and sullen years And a scarcity most bittersweet, Most certainly appears A paucity I loathe to meet - The scarcity of years And tho' the years betray me, The thought of being dead Fills my soul with dread Solemn Death that frightens me, That universal dread! The thirst for immortality, Is unquenchable – unfed! And a methylated river flows, How slavishly it creeps From fountains of the deep A river that the entombed know, Those in dreamless sleep A river that the martyrs know, Those in trance-like sleep Lo! The ghastly river, Death - From Tartarus below The ghastly torrent flows That methylated river, Death - Doth tortuously flow It suffocates and stifles breath, As martyrs surely know I've no want to join them, Those in trance-like sleep Those in dreamless sleep For living shines as diadems, Compar'd to martyr's sleep Yes! Living shines as diadems, Compar'd to martyr's sleep And tho' the years dismay me, And the journey seems too far The voyage seems too far The thirst for immortality, Outlives the garnet star Yea, the want of immortality, Outlasts the garnet star