Harmless Joy

What a harmless joy this is!
Isn't this the way of the world?
Isn't everyone lost in his own harmless desire?
What harm can be done in confining these thoughts to oneself?

Isn't a man entitled to some private pleasure,
A pleasure so private that he would blush to tell?
Yet why does his joy turn quickly into sorrow?
Why does his emptiness remain even after the desire is quenched?

He roams in search of green pastures,
Yet he finds himself in a barren desert.
Fleeting dreams, and fading joys are his delight,
And moments of thrill slip through his hands and turn into filth.

Madness masquerades as sanity for a while,
And then rears its ugly head.
The lover of delight perceives this truth, and yet fails to act,
Fails to accept, fails to turn away, and fails to live that life he knows not.

-Samuel Godfrey George