Tædium Vitae

Tædium Vitae

To stab my youth with desperate knife, to wear 
This paltry age’s gaudy livery, 
To let each base hand filch my treasury,
To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,
And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom,— I swear, 
I love it not! these things are less to me 
Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,
Less than the thistle-down of summer air 
Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof
Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life 
Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof
Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,
Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife
Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.

~ Oscar Wilde