The modern malady of love is nerves. Love, once a simple madness, now observes The stages of his passionate disease, And is twice sorrowful because he sees, Inch by inch entering, the fatal knife. O health of simple minds, give me your life, And let me, for one midnight, cease to hear The clock for ever ticking in my ear, The clock that tells the minutes in my brain. It is not love, nor love's despair, this pain That shoots a witless, keener pang across The simple agony of love and loss. Nerves, nerves! O folly of a child who dreams Of heaven, and, waking in the darkness, screams. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FAREWELL TO MALTA by GEORGE GORDON BYRON CHURCH MONUMENTS by GEORGE HERBERT CHURCH-MUSICK [CHURCH MUSIC] by GEORGE HERBERT THE DESPAIRING LOVER by WILLIAM WALSH (1663-1707) TO S.M., A YOUNG AFRICAN PAINTER, ON SEEING HIS WORKS by PHILLIS WHEATLEY ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS: PART 2: 25. THE VIRGIN by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 36. STRONG, LIKE THE SEA by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY by BERNARD BARTON |