University of Virginia Library

Superfluities

How many things there are in common life
That needful seem, because they always lie
About us everywhere; we ask not why.
We were born with them, and in vain our strife;
For heavier grow the burdens we must bear,
Till childhood even has a look of care.
And, growing with our growth, the things of sense
Like to an army gather daily round;
Till scarce they have left a passage to us hence
Big as a needle's eye, so close they have bound.
Thus custom, luxury, do man's life control,
Pamper the body, starve the immortal soul;
Till we forget our high and heavenly birth,
And deem ourselves at length but sons of earth.
And what's the remedy? All at once to break
The thousand cords of this connected life,
And by one step, a hermit, end the strife?
Will selfish solitude man nobler make?
Or shall we leave our home the world to rove,
And to our social duties faithless prove?
Nay, let not rashness, haste, the burden try;
Nor pleasure-seeking mind, that loves to stray;
These are the very things we should deny,
For more than all our other evils they.
Rather be patience, suffering long the road,
On which we learn to bear life's 'customed load;
Perhaps, while through its darkling paths we tread,
A light shall beam, and prove its guiding thread.