Virtue

Our world well made
with its inhabitants well created
had virtue the iron thread which held all things.

One night when all was quiet
I saw virtue cut,
so loud was its cry;
not only was it cut but into pieces
and thrown into a bottomless pit.

O virtue how helpful you have been
for me and for all
but had no one to support you
let alone myself.

I nearly lost my life and all dear to me;
now it is not the same world anymore;
it is so crooked one hardly walks without bending.
Ah virtue our friend now our enemy,
then was so near now very far from us.
Pretense is now the thin thread around and away;
through the streets and the alleys, none even mourns the
the untimely death of virtue.