HIGHER INNOCENCE

Though Youth’s attached to our true Source,
With Age befalls a great divorce,
For then our primal Innocence
Succumbs to harsh Experience,
And what at first were Trails of Glory
Devolve to a more sordid story:
Original Blessing’s our first state
Corrupted by lust, pride and hate.
Temptation, ego, rivalry
Supplant innate felicity.
Romantic sages thus construe
(Rousseau and Blake and Wordsworth, too)
A non-demonic cause of sin
Hoping we’ll end where we begin.

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