I don’t feel blameless

I don’t feel blameless or innocent;

I grumble and dispute, so much dirt

on my glass that I should be called

Saul of Tarnish. Little light passes

through to penetrate or pierce;

I can’t see enough even to cry

tears, the gloom so thick that

I’m unable to cry at all. It

grasps with a strangling embrace;

grumble, grumble, toil

and trouble, I complain

while others crumble.

I hear a shout:

a kingdom for a nail,

a nail for a kingdom,

a nail, and my thumb is swollen,

a nail for theses on a door,

a nail, and a man died.

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Photograph by nuzrath nuzree via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.