Friendship, ah friendship!
woe is me, ah true friendship,
wily snake in the velvet glove
the curse of Adam;
Caeser’s Brutus!
A hollow world resonating
with many callers; terribly empty.
Friends abound,
loitering vagabonds,
aimless ambition;
Partakers in the intoxicating
drink of life,
Charmers in the halls of the mighty
Bacchus.
‘Tis
but the way of the world,
sure;
Friendship
ordained with the diadem
of composed harlotry,
a Judas in every midst
selling himself for a paltry sum;
sitting in the shade of the sweet Champaka
fragrant,
even as the setting sun
predicts the fall of each individual
Rome.