Shapes of Clay

by Ambrose Bierce

INCURABLE

INCURABLE.

From pride, joy, hate, greed, melancholy--
From any kind of vice, or folly,
Bias, propensity or passion
That is in prevalence and fashion,
Save one, the sufferer or lover
May, by the grace of God, recover:
Alone that spiritual tetter,
The zeal to make creation better,
Glows still immedicably warmer.
Who knows of a reformed reformer?