fateful pleasure

Now and then he swears     to begin a better life. 

But when the night comes on     with its own counsels, 

its own compromises,     and with its promises: 

but when the night comes on     with a power of its own, 

of a body that desires and demands, he returns, 

lost, once more to the same fateful pleasure. 

 

[C.P. Cavafy {1863-1933} 'He Swears', from Poems in Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets]