“Enough! for beauty is not needed.

The sordid world’s not worth a song.

Grow dim, O Tasso’s lamp! Unheeded

Lie, Homer, friend for centuries long!”

“And revolution is not needed;

Its armies dissipate and fade.

It has one crown for which it pleaded,

It has one liberty—to trade.”

“In vain on public squares stands preaching

Harmony’s hungry son to men;

Unwelcome is his gospel-teaching

To the successful citizen.”

“Content, and recking proudly of it,

On heaps where blossoming banners stand,

The scabs of drudgery and profit

He scratches with an itching hand.”

“—Be off! Don’t trouble me. I’m selling.

—No bourgeois, and no farmer, I.

—I hide my profits daily swelling

—In flaming cap of liberty.”

“Soul, here confined and sickly grieving,

On heaps of this dishonoured lot.

Look up to heaven for relieving,

But near, upon the earth, look not!”

So speaks the wicked Heart in trying

To tempt the Soul’s unsullied dreams.

“O earthly one,” says Soul, replying:

“What knowest thou where heaven gleams?”