When from my counted days I think of
times still owed to me by tyrant love,
and my temples anticipate a frost
beyond the tribulation of my years
I see love's counterfeit joys are a poison
reason sips from a glass raised
to those for whom hunger dare appear
in the guise of my honeyed daydream.
What potion of forgetting pleases
reason that by neglect of its duty
so toils against itself for satisfaction?
But my affliction seeks solace, measure
of the desire to be remedied and
the desire to overcome it love's remedy