For vanity

[joel]

For vanity would I be not removed
from mirror shores long after waves repent
and drag me flat and lost away— and proved
as fragile there as in your faith of me.
For vanity I prove impenitent;
was it for such your faith of me reproved?
But don’t you suffer too for vanity?
What sorry graces share in our descent
from mirror shores and joys we had approved,
dispersed in vain on vanities unmoved.

When jagged thoughts time rounded wash ashore—
I wonder if you’ll pick them up like me,
some age-old piece of trash to now explore
for beauties of what was and now lays changed.
How often do you find such vanity?
Yet sometime grace your memory; restore
my rounded razor angles time arranged
perhaps too softly, too forgetfully—
I will not vainly ask that you adore
me; please don’t me for vanity outscore.