Desire Has Laid Me Low

Tormenting me, desire has laid me low.
With all my getting I have nought to show.
For me there is but ‘you’, there are no ‘them’.
Those closest to me I no longer know.

I am not handsome, and my speech is slow.
I know not what I seek nor where I go.
A white and red rose in my garden grow.
You white and red rose are, love’s hidden gem.
You sap my roots, you shake upon my stem,
Tormenting me.

My melancholy black is as the crow
And Time, which was my friend, is now my foe.
His sun inside me by a stratagem
Has crowned her fair head with a diadem,
Tormenting me.