Fate is a card dealer without ambition, without plan,
Randomly dealing judgements throughout one's lifespan.
Yet those decks bound to the blood of Mankind
Transcend chaos twice to bear the same sign.
The twin awakenings of youth are hard,
For both fall under the Devil's card.

Nay five winters from the young life's start
Spring's light liberates a dormant heart.
Before heavenly love is earthy lust;
Roots need grow before the shoots must.
But the Watchers want fields of winter wheat;
Their frost stunts the fruits of an Inner Heat.

Look how the little ones wish to play,
To guiltlessly let their eyes and hands stray
Upon themselves and upon their friends;
May they know that their affections must end!
Shame, reflected by a mirror of faces,
Conceals their seeds in cool, dry, dark places.

Once roused, then doused, Desire sleeps as a cinder,
While the child lives as a forgiven sinner.
The memories waver, then fade fast,
Though the lessons of Guilt, like ghosts, last.
Fate wonders how romance will ever bloom
When its first inklings withered in others' gloom.