Classic Poem

Soft floating plaques of airy vivid gold,
Whose errant flight ties bow-knots in the air.
No strict direction doth it ever hold,
But nonchalantly flutters here and there.
Now up, now down, now veering round about,
Now sheering backwards with an upward lilt
That settling turns the flight-loop inside out:
Thus manifest's the vagary of your guilt.
Thus tortuous is the earth-flight o' the soul —
Your namesake, given by those wise old Greeks —
Insouciantly fluttering towards a goal
Which now it spurns, and now as wildly seeks.
Oft — for their good — air currents bear these sweet flies
In a direction they would shun elsewise.