When Melancholy Drowns My Interests

When melancholy drowns my interests, all seem lost; when black bile's ooze then molests, I travel through the valley of this death, lacking life, hope—even desire for breath! So, myself from blackness I amputate, spurn whether to self-murder (and brave this fate?); and lay aside despair and misery, to fall in love once more with Poetry. For two loves I have, God and the Muses: one gives, the other neither refuses. Before long, the Parnassus heals me in time; and I grow strong before the end of this rhyme! For mightier than despair is the Lord, and the poet whose pen conquers the sword.