ANTIDOTE FOR ENNUI

Posted by Admin on 25 January 2008, 12:00 am

Sigh not if life withholds those things
for which your spirit burns;
if ennui clips enjoyment’s wings
and all to boredom turns.

If gladness and the joys youth knew
your eager grasp elude;
grieve not, nor let your grief accrue
in mental solitude.

Just analyse each secret care
and scrutinize each mood;
to prove self-pity hides not there
with discontent’s dull brood.

These traitors to the human mind
forever working ill,
too subtle to be well defined,
must be renounced by will.

Remember as you exorcise
dissatisfaction’s spells;
futility wears no disguise
in self-made mental hells.

Though from the long-pent wells of grief
the crystal waters pour,
the fiercest torrents find relief
where broader streams explore.

Then turn and view your neighbour’s state,
the sightless, and the maimed;
the workless, hopeless butts for Fate,
and those by sickness claimed.

Rejoice, the world is yours to take,
let Music, Art, and Verse
with ecstasy your being wake,
while morbid thoughts disperse.

T. C. Hudson
4th January 1939

© T. C. Hudson.

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