Characteristic temptations before age 50

"If we never give into temptation, does it mean we have character?
If we have character, how can we build it without giving into temptation?"

If I demand madder music and stronger wine,
sinking into mad merriment out of time
with this age of reckless abandonment,
do not condemn me as if I am all spent.
If I love too long or curse too loudly
it does not mean I do not walk proudly.
Ink in my veins bleeds out of this pen
to speak of what joylessness may happen
to a man made perfect in all his parts
who still professes all the nightly arts:
drunken singing and wild-loved nights
where freely roam once-loved delights.

If I love more intensely than this moment
inhabits me, the devil cannot pass comment,
for he wickedly wishes me to love no more,
to cast less time on those I deeply adore.
So pour us glasses of stronger blooded wine
and dance with me out of staggered time
and into a place where we will always be
loved, adored, joyful and eternally free.

Responses

2 comments so far.

1. Virginia (Ginny) Muller says:

   The first stanza..........really makes one think and the rest says everything there is to be said about temptation. Wonderful..

2. Orpheus . says:

   Thank you for the comments. If I may explain my poem, because my message is sometimes unclear: 'what joylessness may happen to a man made perfect in all his parts' refers to a dead philosopher who said 'the mother of excess is joylessness' and 'made perfect' refers to our creation in the 'image of God'. The last two lines of the first stanze speak of once-loved delights and wild delights. Too much of a good thing can spoil it and irredeemably spoil its internal workings.
   In the second stanza, I say that a moment is to be inhabited because there is so much to be grateful for - we are alive in the image of God and that is the source of the love that we carry for each other and ourselves.
   We were never said to be sin-free, we can make merry, but it all boils down to context, quantity and character.
   Overall, we cannot condemn others for giving in, because we are human but we should always know better because we are 'made perfect' - with conscience, morality and a sense of the purpose of the Divine in us.