Spirit trumpets down from tower, spire and hall; They cannot hearken to the call. Smothered in that they worship—wealth, power, birth— Dream they are growing wings, and rot on earth! Self-courted woes, suicide of the brain, Dark chos’n for light, tortures in vain Endured; this particle of life we have— A spark at best—o’erdriven to the grave! All but to pamper bodies, that, so long As they are painless, hale, and strong, Are warranted by Nature, watch-dog kind, To press no further wants upon the Mind. This commonwealth of limbs, together brought To be a tenement for Thought, Asks but to be exempt from fell disease, Joy in mere breath, and feel itself at ease. When the lamps’ flame from golden statues gleams, Do the lights vie with the sun’s beams? Must music to stir hearts to leap and bound, From frescoed walls and fretted roofs resound? Or if some time hot fever racks the head, Are you, tossing on a sick bed, Easier at all that you chance to lie On cedarn couch purple with Tyrian dye? Know you not, wastrels, that what Mind you give To flesh you steal from power to live? The spirit is the root of life; thereby We live; and if we starve it, then we die. When spirit-comrades by cool brook recline, Beneath the shade of beech or pine, They reck not which the rich, and which the poor. Nor envious, nor jealous of neighbours’ store. Enough to feel the warm blood answering The joyousness of the sweet Spring: While the soft turf, to offer greetings due, Dresses itself in flow’rs of ev’ry hue. Sense feels the charm, and Nature all approves; While spirit talks with spirit, as it loves. Ah! know how nought to flesh itself the whole You sell life for; how hateful to the soul! ‘Musical as is Apollo’s Lute’ Bk. IV. vv. 1-25