I Wish I Could Arrest My Thoughts

I wish I could arrest my thoughts,
Then banish, chained, to a distant isle,
Confine them to The Castle of If1
And execute after a trial.

No sign of mercy would I show
To these abhorrent little thieves
That steal my reason during day
And make my night a bed of grieves.

Confronted thus with their own deeds,
They would, at last, admit their guilt.
I would condemn them to their death
And by the dawn they would be killed.

Our thoughts can be our major crimes
That are committed in our head.
We pay for them in sleepless nights
And turns to stone our daily bread.
 

Footnotes
1  The Château d'If is a fortress (later a prison) located on the island of If, the smallest island in the Frioul archipelago situated in theMediterranean Sea about a mile offshore in the Bay of Marseille in southeastern France. It is famous for being one of the settings ofAlexandre Dumas' adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo