For, albeit sin is hate, a foul and bitter turpitude,
As hurling back against the Giver all His gifts with insult,
Still when concrete in the sinner, it will seem to partake of his attractions,
And in seductive masquerade shall cloak its leprous skin;
His broken lights of beauty shall illumine its utter black,
And those refracted rays glitter on the hunch of its deformity.
Verily the fancy may be false, yet hath it met me in my musings,
That even those yearnings after beauty, in wayward wanton youth,
When, guileless of ulterior end, it craveth but to look upon the lovely,
Seem like struggles of the soul, dimly remembering pre-existence,