Through toil and martyrdom a million years
Struggling and groping upward from the brute,
And ever dragging still the brutish chains,
And ever slipping backward to the brute.
Shall he not break the galling, brazen bonds
That bind him writhing on the wheel of fate?
Long ages groveling with his brother brutes,
He plucked the tree of knowledge and uprose
And walked erect--a god; but died the death:
For knowledge brings but sadness and unrest
Forever, insatiate longing and regret.
Behold the brute's unerring instinct guides
True as the pole-star, while man's reason leads
How oft to quicksands and the hidden reefs!
Contented brute, his daily wants how few!
And these by Nature's mother-hand supplied.
Man's wants unnumbered and unsatisfied,
And multiplied at every onward step--
Insatiate as the cavernous maw of time.
His real wants how simple and how few!
Behold the kine in yonder pasture-field
Cropping the clover, or in rest reclined,
Chewing meek-eyed the cud of sweet content.
Ambition plagues them not, nor hope, nor fear;
No demons fright them and no cruel creeds;
No pangs of disappointment or remorse.
See man the picture of perpetual want,
The prototype of all disquietude;
Full of trouble, yet ever seeking more;
Between the upper and the nether stone
Ground and forever in the mill of fate.
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