"I longed for love--love pure like driven snow" re-revised

When life and love are not enjoyed in youth only remorse remains in the twilight of life.

I longed for love--love pure like driven snow,

untouched and virgin--in the years to come:

but years did come and go until (O woe!)

it, like the fall, decayed in my autumn.

Heartbroken, never I a princess met

or maiden girl with whom to spend long nights

of ardent love. (Alas! best to forget

my heart's too foolish hopes of its delights.)

Unstained by sin, naïve and innocent;

unspoil'd by life and vice in the very least:

I cast'd aside my youth's prurient bent,

forswore my loins' lusts and was my own priest!

     Now aged and useless, I've denied all love;

     thus life's reproach abides and won't approve.