The Poetry of Real Life | ||
TIME-SERVERS.
Who lives upon opinion, lives but byThe breath of others' mouths, not by his own—
His very soul, by which Man lives alone,
Is pawned, and hourly gives itself the lie—
He dares not lift his hand, or laugh, or cry,
Save upon precedent—yet such I've known,
Who tune their shallow pipes to every tone,
Playing all stops with like facility—
'Twere worse than death such borrowed air to draw;
In their own nostrils such men's breath must smell—
'Tis rank: for it must first have passed the maw
Of commonest opinion, ere they (faugh!)
Will breathe it, whose souls are the vehicle
Of that at which a beggar's gorge would swell!
The Poetry of Real Life | ||